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b | Barb Sanders | I and my "husband" kiss and he says he wants to lay on top of me and cuddle. He says it feels better that way. We cuddle and it is sweet and sensual. I love it. There is the slight tantalizing promise of sexual feelings later. After that, I am putting all the children to bed. It is fun and sweet. I play with them and kiss them and they hug. My roommate S is angry and upset and I encourage her to leave. Now we have to find another place to live. I go downtown and enter a newspaper office to find an ad. A man is telling his ad to the clerk. He says, "Near downtown and near the river." I say, "That sounds like what I'm looking for." We agree he shouldn't put his ad in and we'll go look for it. I apologize to the clerk for taking him away. She's OK with it. We go to see he house. The living room is large. We walk through to the kitchen, which is also large. There are several sets of sinks, stoves etc. I walk through to the back yard, which is enclosed, wooded and beautiful. The children will love it. I look up and notice the entire huge backyard is roofed to protect from rain. I decide I don't like that and it changes to just an overhang near the porch. The man shows me the mosquito netting to roll down around the porch. I wonder if that means there are... [NOTE: THIS DREAM WAS CUT OFF.] | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | A man is negative and yelling that this boy can't do something. I tell him to leave the boy alone. He's doing fine. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I'm at a family gathering and it's getting time to leave. The entertainment is over. A man like Raul had done an act of magic and juggling. He had handed out little gifts and four knives didn't get handed out and he said he'd give us them later. Now only my two brothers and one sister are left around the table and we start talking. Lydia complains about how my mother is always this way or that and I am surprised to hear her being negative. I usually do that. I then read a portion of a letter I wrote (which had a few mistakes where I needed to add the word IF, like the sentence said something like I would like to die, or I would die if, but I wrote, IF I would like to die) several times and on the third time they yawn and stop listening. I feel a little hurt, but acknowledge that maybe I was being boring and attention-getting. They agree. Dwight takes over and tells me how I'm always so bossy. They all take turns telling me off. They aren't going to put up with it any more. I feel bad, but unfortunately agree with them. Now, the entertainer is back and does his thing and other entertainers are there. They all wear black and white masks on their faces. I remember that is the theme of this occasion. He reminds himself to give Jake the four knives he hadn't in the last round. Charla is sitting on Lydia's lap and leaning over on me and now she wants to curl up in my lap. I say, "You're fine this way," (on Lydia's lap but near me), but she insists and curls up on me. It's nice and I hug her and cover us up with a blanket. Then she slides off my lap and goes to play and begins crying. I go over to see. She is a skinny cloth doll with a ring stuck on her skinny one-leg trunk. I say, "Is this what you are crying about?" She says, "Yes." I help her remove the ring. She is happy and I hug her and let her finish her crying. When she was on my lap, I was talking with Jake on my right, and I started to say, "Uncle Fo," but then I said to him, "I'm sorry. I forgot. I just like that name." "Well, I don't," he said, angrily. They are all four really on my case. It was so rare that we all talked like this and really shared our feelings, and we could only do it because all the other relatives were already gone. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am entering a room where a graduation will take place. I pick up a crying boy to comfort him. He's afraid of this graduation. I hug him and sooth him and explain that soon a bunch of people in blue robes will come in and it will be OK. We enter the room and walk to the opposite side against the wall. There are no chairs and I wonder how I'll manage standing through the whole thing. Lydia is now on my left and my mother on my right. I see young people walking in randomly with blue robes on and point them out to the boy. There is water about mid-calf height on the floor and I am aware of a hole in front of me and wonder where it is exactly. I worry about it. It moves toward me and I think I'm going to step in it and disappear. My mother ridicules me for being over-concerned and making a fuss. The boy gets down to go to his father. The boy's name is Dickie. Ugh. I think, "A chip off the old block." I decide I must leave the room to insure my safety. I leave and now am in a kitchen-like area. I decide to sleep in the van and now I'm out there; it is a cold, snowy night. A window is open. I order a special sleeping bag from a catalogue that will keep me warm. I notice the van is now in a heated sort of garage room and a horse is there. It loves me intently and wants me to ride it, but I hesitate. He shortens his legs so it's easy for me to get up, he loves me so much. I try to get on over his ample rump, wondering if he'll kick me. He, of course, won't because he needs me so badly. I get on and he grows back up to his normal height. I ride him into the house and decide to take a warm bath. I then get out of the tub, noticing I'm still in the garage room and it is being kept well heated for me at great expense. I hang up a yellow plastic shovel thing on a hook on the wall and remind myself to go get more of those hooks. They are very helpful. My mother is annoyed with me for getting so much special privilege. I go into the kitchen area to the table. I think I assure her I'll clean up after myself. She is disapproving of what I do and how I do it. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am with Dovre and we are at some kind of campground resort area. I am on a bicycle-like thing and am going back to my camp area. There is a center line of broken tree stumps in the road and I ride over them like they are those bumps in the center line. As I turn a corner and get off the bike, I see Michael (of crystals) Ron. He's leaving and I am entering and we pause and wave to each other. I say, "I'll see you later." He says, "I'm leaving tomorrow," and I say, "I'm leaving tonight. I guess this is goodbye." We look at each other uncertainly, wanting to connect, but the moment passes and I walk on. I think about that moment, feeling badly that I didn't say anything to connect later. I just let it pass like I always do, when I'm in automatic. Then, I find a bathroom and see four or five open stalls of toilets and look for the least messy one. Some have leaks and some have turds in them. I squat over a tiny, low bowl and have a bowel movement. I am a bit constipated and it is hard to get it out. A woman comes over and chats with me as I am squatted in this embarrassing position. Then Michael/Ron comes in and it's no longer the bathroom but my campsite. I am laying down and he starts to make gentle, hesitating love to me. I want him to, but I am "thinking" it, not feeling it. I french kiss him and wonder why I am anticipating that when I don't particularly like it. He follows my lead. I wonder what I'm doing. Why can't I just relax and feel it, and not be so uptight about performance or what he thinks? Then I remember we are out in the open and wonder if people will see us. Michael/Ron then scoots us off the blanket and under a small table and pulls a blanket over us. I say, "Oh, don't do that. Now you are in the gravel." I want him to be more comfortable, but he says it's OK and picks me up and carries me to his camp site which is more private. I am amazed at his strength, because I am still lying down and covered by this table and blanket. He says, "Just a minute," and goes into a small cabin bed area and then invites me in. I realize this is Claude's bed and feel funny making love to Ron in it when I'd rather be with Claude myself. I go in and lay down. Michael/Ron says, "Oh, you sat on my eagle button," and I realize he and I are wearing army jackets. I am surprised he was ever in the army, being as he's so gentle and new-age. I make a joke about sitting on his eagle and he says it's still cold in here. I feel the coolness and agree. Then I decide to unbutton the jacket. I do it matter-of-factly, wondering why I don't use this obvious opportunity to be sexy and provocative. Later, it's time for me to leave. I try to put things back like they were and pack my things. Michael/Ron says he's going over to his vehicle and put things away. He does. I see gold bangle bracelets and chains for necklaces and wonder if they are Sharon's (Claude's new girlfriend's.) I see toys and I guess they are for her daughter. I feel some jealousy and sadness. Now I go looking for Michael/Ron. I pass a camp trailer/tent that is shaking violently as the two people in it are making passionate love. I laugh at it all because it wasn't so long ago I was with Michael/Ron making love and now these people, oblivious to others, are having at it. I see his van set up and go there. Then I can't find him. The van has turned into a fancy RV. I turn to go back but he calls to me on the road and catches up. Then I see my father. He has come over the mountain on a bus so he can help me drive home over the mountains. I am relieved a bit because I then won't have to drive myself. My father talks of aunts and uncles that are old now and in some places they have to live together in retirement centers. Maybe that's not so bad, I wonder. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am on stage, as a sort of stage manager, in C City. A little black girl is going to do ballet and tap dancing. She does the ballet and the audience loves it, although it is a redneck audience and usually doesn't care for this sort of thing. I think some rough man kind of forced them to be there, because he wanted the girl to have an audience. Just before the show, I had looked through the curtains to see only a few people seated up front and to the left side. There is a short intermission for the girl to change into her tap shoes. The time gets longer and the audience gets restless. I think, "I'd better do some Evangeline if this keeps up." She comes back, but she doesn't want to dance now. She says her tummy is upset and she had to go to the bathroom and maybe she'll dance, maybe she won't. I say, "Then I need to know. Take one minute to decide. Either way it's OK. If you dance, fine, if you don't, fine, I will just do my Evangeline character. But I need to know now!" She agrees to dance. I go out front of the curtain and chat with the audience about how the town hasn't changed much since I was there years ago. [BL] | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I observe as a woman drives a car, and in the center of the front seat there is a bathtub and a naked woman is in it and a man is in the passenger or back seat. He's kind of rough and I worry the naked woman is too vulnerable. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am driving the wrong way, against traffic. I see four lanes of busy traffic coming at me and dodge the cars crossing the lanes to get to the right side of the road. Then I am angry at Ellie because she has decided to move out of my house and I don't think she's ready yet. I tell her that she should wait until she's got her full head up out of the "waves," not just her eyes, meaning she takes too much risk and needs to slow down and take care of herself. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in a bedroom; I have just moved in. (It's similar to this new apartment I live in.) I am looking at a computer-like monitor that shows pictures and I see "The top of the world," a village in the alps, like. My mother is there, holding her son, my baby brother. He is 2 months old. My mother has red lipstick on and speaks with her jaw clenched. She says the recipe given this year with the calendar was "Yom Kippers" and she just wasn't going to make that. She wasn't up to it. Did I have my big box of recipes still? I said I did but it's probably in storage. I'd have to get everything out of storage and look for it. She hands the baby to me. I hold him. He's cute and I marvel at how he is my brother, and yet I have grandchildren older than he. It will be fun to have him around occasionally. I then get in bed, after giving the baby back to my mother. I am laying in a single bed and feel cold. I try to pull the blankets over me. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am walking through the city blocks of a new city, sight seeing. I am now beyond where the stores are and walking along the side of the highway. There are no houses or anything, but I am curious about what is beyond it. The only way to explore a new city is to walk all the streets and see what's what. I decide this way will be too long and I turn and go the other way and am now going down a hill and the ocean is on the left. I want to take a picture and start to cross the road to the little turn off where I can be safe and take a picture. A huge RV pulls up there and I wait, thinking how ironic, just when I was going to go there. Finally they pull away. I get there and put on my wheelchair brakes. I kind of roll a bit anyway, which makes me nervous because it's a sheer dropoff. I focus the camera which looks like opera glasses. I see a small island with birds on it. At first I thought there was a polar bear on it, but it was birds. I snap shots, bringing them closer with the telephoto lens. I then go on and am in a house with I think, Shannon, the old the community college poetry teacher. I've written something, a letter perhaps, and she isn't reading it. Another woman picks it up and looks at it. Nobody is much impressed. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Mirabelle and I are in a church and we start clapping our hands to get the congregation to keep time with us. Then we start singing. It went something like this, "Lord I need your help now," and He said, "Just pray to me." I said, "I can do that Lord, I can do that, because I have God, and God has me." Then we'd sing another verse and repeat the chorus. The audience would clap with us at first and then quiet up to hear the words of the verse. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | A black man is attracted to me and me to him. I like his gentleness and loving attitude. I think he's sexy as well. But I hesitate because he's loud mouthed and uncouth and it is somewhat embarrassing to have him around my friends. He's testing me to see if I am honest and open. There is a parade and I join it, acting silly and joining in the march/dance. He likes that I'm willing to do that. He asks me questions about a man named Scott who stayed overnight. He stands very close to me and I feel like I want to melt into his arms, but resist. He wants to know if he stayed two nights and I tell him honestly it was only one night. He wants to know if I made l love to him and I tell him no. He won't believe me at first. I tell him openly it isn't that I'm virtuous; I was scared and can't relax to lovemaking when I'm scared. He respects that. He's painted small purple squares on my black floor. It makes a nice design. He has to go to the bathroom so he says, "I'll leave my money and my drugs here with you; guess I'll find out if I can trust you." He does. I then leave the room talking to someone, perhaps my husband. I see my 2-year-old son going into the room and follow and see that he's eaten one of the big, colorful pills. I reach my finger in his mouth to get it out and he won't cooperate. I dig around his narrow, clenched mouth and finally force it out. I wonder what kind of scary drug it is, maybe LSD. The man comes back and I tell him what happened. We are more openly in love with each other and can't resist one another. He is less uncouth and I begin to realize he's a talented artist and rich and had been playing a charade to see if I could l love him without the finery. I found out he was an artist because I bumped a book on a chair and a picture fell out and I picked it up. Tempted to open the book and look more, I resolutely don't as that would be an invasion of privacy. We hug and kiss. It is delightful, warm and loving. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I belong to some club and we are hanging out and talking and Ralph comes in with a scathing letter. He doesn't like the way we waste time playing with tools or knitting or letting Clarisa talk and play. We think he's being rude and uncaring. He doesn't like the maps on the wall. Then there is some kind of space travel and Sheila J is old and ill and reads poetry. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am working in something like a children's camp. Then it's sort of a circus-like place and lots of the employees get sick and so only a few of us are left. Someone says we can all double up on the jobs and no one will know we're short. The show will go on and they sure will be surprised at curtain call when only five of us come out. I say, "Even I can help." I walk along an edge of a canyon and look over to find the activity I can help with. I find a clear plastic toy I shot like a cannon. Later, I am tired and want to go home. I feel like a nurse from Vietnam, tired, shocked etc. I bum a ride from George, a Native American who lives in these isolated parts. He takes a shortcut that is a hair raising ride, up a steep road hill and over and down. He laughs and says, "Hang on." I kind of like the sensation, like a roller coaster ride, and laugh. We get to town and I am exhausted and I say, "George will you marry me?" meaning it's so hard sometimes to do it alone. He actually takes me seriously and likes the idea as he respects and likes me. He starts talking about us spending time together. I smile and say, "How sweet, but I was just joking." He is sad and disappointed. I look in my wallet for some money to help pay gas. I find a voucher for 45 cents and then see a dollar bill, then a couple of fives. I give him a two dollar bill, which is more than I thought I could afford, but it's OK. I try to stuff all my papers back in the wallet to close it. I get out of the car, but he really wants to talk, to stay with me. Now I'm with a woman nurse who brought me home and we are watching the continuing romance of George and me as it blossoms. How very sweet and poignant. The woman yawns and asks if I need any help getting my bed made or arranged. I said no it's OK. I sleep in a child's bed. Then I wonder if I have refused help and will need it later as usual. The car is parked backwards in a steep driveway and the brakes are on, but it starts sliding backward to the garage and I wonder if I could be hurt by being cut in half as the car forces it's way into the garage. It stops and I am OK. I watch George and "me" hugging and think it happens that way sometimes, small town, two people get together and the romance and love slowly develops over time. I feel alone and sad as I get out of the car to go to my house, alone. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I have a great idea for a book or something and I am rushing home to write it or research it and I deliberately go around a crowd of people having fun and bike on a path alone. I go to the house I used to live in and see my mother and Lydia are still there cleaning up and packing. I ask permission to come in and use the phone. I walk through several rooms, noticing the wallpaper is newspaper comics and have holes in them, and think I should try to help fix that but decide to continue on with the writing phone calls. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I have a half of a golden purse in the shape of a bar. I look over and see another woman has four or five. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I enter a room and George Carlin has a huge stack of glass bowls and I suggest we clean them. He and I are doing this precarious balancing act with the dishes as we playfully argue who's going to do the dishes and when. In order to prevent the whole bunch to tumble and break, we manage to make three smaller columns of dishes. Now I am at the sink and washing off dried bits of catsup and food off the dish. Now I am looking for a place to go to the bathroom. Paulina has moved in with me, so she's around. I want some privacy. Howard is around, too. I find a small hall-like room with a door at each end and I try to close both doors as Paulina and someone is on the left side in a living room watching TV and someone else is on the right side in another room. I squat to have a bowel movement and pause, wishing I had brought toilet paper. I realize if I let go, I will urinate all over the floor, and I pick up a bit of paper debris to hold under me to catch some of the flow. It's going to be a mess. Then I realize, now that I am alone, I can just go into the bathroom and do it normally in a toilet and save myself a lot of muss and fuss. I get up to go to the bathroom, feeling relieved. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | A large jungle cat, like a tiger and a huge snake, are all wrapped up around each other fighting. A cut is made on the back of the cat's head at the base of the skull so the snake can get its poison into the cat and kill it. But if it's the snake doing it, where did he get the paws?? So I don't know who is biting and poisoning who! | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am teaching a small group of difficult students, math. They're rowdy, refuse to be quiet and I keep trying to talk over them. Finally, in frustration, I yell, "Shut up," and slap them around on the face and ears. It doesn't really do much. I dismiss the ones who are merely marginally difficult and say these four have to stay. I tell them to go up to the board and give one of them (four teen males) the problem 5 + 5 to work, I am sarcastic. He can't get it. Later, I am with Paulina and looking in a glass display case at miniatures. I want to pierce my eyelid and wear a small model of the USS Enterprise. We look at them and I change my mind because they would be so heavy I wouldn't be able to open my eye. I see my small kitten and it is playing with a small colorful mouse with a baby miniature mouse at its side. I hope my cat doesn't hurt the mouse baby. Later I ask my mother where I should put this bowl of food. I tell her I put it under a shelf on a wall so it's out of the way of feet and won't get stepped on. She says that's OK. Aunt Naomi is around somewhere. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Dora and I and Ellie as a 10-year-old are in a house and I look out the open door and see some boats in a river and say, "Look at the parade." Behind the five or so boats are people jogging on the water. I am amazed. How can they walk on water? We go out and look. It's those new shoes with special soles, made to resist the water surface so they don't sink. Dora wants a closer look, so she goes into the river and walks in the same spot and we laugh because it is clear that the river there is so shallow it appears she is walking on the surface. As she walks, she gets deeper and deeper and now she is swimming (she is pregnant). Now Ellie decides to join her and jumps in the deep part and swims around. I get very upset because it is a steep embankment and the water is deep and I couldn't go save her if she got in trouble. I insist she come out now. "Ellie, come out right now." "No, mommy, I want to swim." "Ellie, please come out; I am afraid." "I'm OK, mommy" She stays in and I escalate to screaming my orders in fear. She refuses and gets out and dives back in several different times while I explain in a screaming, tearful, fearful voice how dangerous it is, and if she had trouble, I couldn't go save her and she'd drown, or worse. I realize with some guilt I would have to throw myself in and try to save her and drown with her. Finally she gets out and says, "But in the Babar book, it said you have to try new things." I am upset that she got this idea out of a children's book. I explain how you need to take risks, but only after you have thought them out and know if they are safe enough risks. You could get killed just jumping in and trying something without thinking it through. She is not convinced. Later, I look at a file from my classes and see notes from a teacher about a series of my dreams or poems. I feel overwhelmed by the fact that this is just one long list of things I could do out of many. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Dwight and maybe Jake and I. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in an apartment that is across a street from a gas station. A man comes over and says that this could be mutually beneficial for me and the man who owns the station. I have something he wants and he has something I want. The man comes over, kind of a geek, and says, "Oh, by the way, I owe you some money because I helped myself to some tags for hunting and I need to pay you now." And I say, "Oh, really? Well, then you should also pay me interest because you didn't even ask." He laughs and tries to weasel out of doing that. Now he and another man and I are walking, still dickering about the money, and he wants to be my honey. He asks and I say no. He then puts his hand/arm around my shoulder and I walk out from under his embrace. That makes him mad. He's kind of like a wealthy black man, only he's white. I go into a closet to find a pretty dress to wear and he is watching jealously. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am watching CNN and it is a hidden camera in Noriego's bedroom. He is laying in bed, on his back, and no covers over him. I am a bit embarrassed and curious and look. I see he is naked and I want to see what his penis looks like. He's kind of flabby and has dark, black, curly pubic hair and a dark-skinned, medium-sized, semi-flaccid penis. He starts to play with it to excite himself and I think, "How weird. He knows the camera is there." I watch, disgusted and fascinated. Then a snake tongue comes out of the tip of the penis and Noriego curls up so he can get that tongue flicking in and out of his mouth. He's almost in the shape of a circle and the flicking tongue, forked, is quite long and active. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | (11/14/92)"I am driving and there is road work and a detour. I get out of the car and start walking, only I take the wrong way and the men start teasing me by saying loudly, "Hey what kind of person doesn't read the signs?" I shrug and turn and get on the right road and see two men walking that way. The road isn't paved yet, they are about to pave it. As I am walking, I realize that I am supposed to get married at 2 o'clock and look at my watch. It is 5 after 2:00. I am late. I had forgotten I was getting married today and I feel embarrassed. I need to find a phone to call. Darn it, now if I do the wedding another day, it will cost more money for more flowers and so on. I sure made a big mistake! I tell the men I need to get there because I'm getting married. I tell Lucy, who I don't actually see. I say, "What can this be saying, that I forgot I was getting married? Maybe I don't want to get married!" I find a house and ask to borrow the phone. Is it OK to call information to get the number? They say yes. They ask where it's being held, M City? I say, "No, more like C City." Then I remember, it's E City. I need the diocese, but I can't remember it's name or number. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I share a table at a sort of fair-like thing with this tall, arrogant man, like the harmonic man of E City celebration. I don't sell anything. I just hang out. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in an audience watching the Tuesday rehearsal of the classic Star Trek and Captain Kirk is doing badly. He is high on something and forgetting his lines and not being at his best. I am disappointed because I really like him. Meanwhile a fat, tall older man, a chicken farmer grandpa, likes me and is making advances. I think, "Why is it that the ones I want are flawed and I don't want the ones that want me?" I get up to leave. I am a younger, virginal woman from a foreign country, maybe India. Kirk follows me and he wants to make love, but that is against the mores of my country. Why should I give up something valuable for this man? I am walking and I see a pond or large fountain. It is raining torrentially on the pond and on my van, which is parked by it with the doors open. I wonder if the interior of the van will be ruined, but somehow it's OK because this rain seems so special and intense and beautiful. I am enthralled by it. Another man comes up to me and wants me to walk in the rain with him, and join the line of people wading in the pond near the edge. I choose not to, even though it has a strong pull on me to abandon myself to the feeling. I go on and Kirk still follows. He wants to kiss me and is flirting and he's now in a cardboard box, a long narrow one, and I decide to give in to him. I pull him out of the box and into my arms and we kiss. I have risked all my values and respect. He then laughs and goes on. He is shallow and is no longer interested in me. I feel betrayed. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am visiting in Dover and meet a large woman who is a comedian and runs a restaurant in her home. I'm with Ginny. I want to tell this woman that I am a comedian too, but feel hesitant and shy. Finally I open my back pack, which has two zipper panels, to get my tapes to share with her. I see food in there, eggs, sandwiches, etc., that we had packed for the day. I hope the tapes aren't getting ruined. I tell her that the one tape is my comedy character, Evangeline, and the other one is my poetry, just plain poetry. I see that the picture on that tape is me in my wedding dress. All I see is the veil as my back is turned. She takes the tapes and thanks me. I haven't the courage to tell her I'm selling them and feel badly I let her have them without any money, but it's OK sort of because its networking. Later she gives me two tapes of her material and we're even. We are in her living room where a small group of people are having dinner at the one table of her restaurant. Now a CP man in a chair grabs my hand and wants me to run along side him. Off we go and I'm yelling angrily, "I can only do this with skates." Over and over I yell that, but he doesn't get it and drags me along. Finally I get him to stop and I angrily ask him why didn't he listen to me. I know I didn't exactly yell stop! but anyone with a brain could tell that's what I'm saying. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am seated at a round table with other people and we are being guarded by alien beings (sort of reptilian). They are feeding us to fatten us up to eat us later. I realize this and pass my food on to the others so I won't get fat. I hope they don't notice. I watch them carefully, feeling fear because I know at some point I shall have to make a stand and will probably be killed. At one point I am somehow flying up the outside wall and peeking inside a window where two aliens are going to make love. As they do, I overhear one saying in horror, "You have a white cross mark on your hand." This means that their blood will kill him if he contacts it. I then know how I can save myself. Now I am back at the table and I try to set up a fight between aliens so their bad blood will kill themselves off. I hope I'm not killed in the process. [BL] | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I have to do the next round in the comedy challenge and I can't decide if I should do the routine I did before or do a new one. I feel very nervous. There are a series of places I must go in sequence to do the routine. The first one is in a living room late at night. I keep getting distracted and now it's time to do the routine and I don't remember all the old routine. I sure wish I'd practiced more. I start to talk, saying anything that comes to mind and some of the jokes are funny. I tell them I had dreamed a joke and naturally wrote it down. It was very funny, but when I woke up I looked at what I had written. It said, "Frackel ummm orange." Everyone thought that was very funny and laughed. Then a man starts talking to me, sort of interviewing me, and I spend the rest of the routine time talking with him in front of the small group of audience members. I hope it counts. After it all, I must rest before going on to the next round and lay down on a sofa bed (hideaway bed). The man who is attracted to me lies down beside me in spoon fashion. He is hesitant, but he wants to and I pretend to be asleep, even though I enjoy him being near. Then he reaches over and kisses me sweetly. I do not respond, pretending to sleep and enjoy the kiss. He says, "Please don't tell my wife I did this." | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in some sort of soap opera. The man is black and I am white, so the producers had him "married" to a black woman, but he comes to me and says, "It's you I really love," and embraces me. He kisses my throat open-mouthed like a bite, only it's a delicious kiss and I love it and respond warmly to his advances. We agree that it doesn't matter if he's black and I'm white. We love each other. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Dovre is choosing some miniature furniture from my collection. She has to return home and I am going to drive her to the airport in the next small town, but she says she prefers to go farther to the Hartford airport because she wants to hang out in the big city for a while. I am annoyed. I don't want to take that kind of time and energy. Then I feel guilty because a good mother would do this happily for her child. I am being selfish. [BL] | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am at a garage sale with Howard, looking around. I find a miniature Japanese bookshelf and say, "I want this." I also say, "This isn't the right period, but I like it anyway." It has bamboo sliding panels over the bookshelves. Then I find a wallet and I open it and it has many interesting and roomy pockets with zippers. The zippers are fairly easy to work and I am surprised at all the room in the little compartments. Then I wonder how I would fold it back up into a wallet when I fill all those compartments. I find a red small purse with another wallet in it and want it. It is $9.95, and even though this is a high price, I decide to get it as well as the other. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am staying in a nice old house and wish I could still live there in the summer. I go into a bedroom and sit on the bed. I notice a fine mist of rain in the room and see drops of water leaking out of the light bulb socket on the ceiling. Well, this needs to get fixed! I watch as the light bulb itself expands and contracts like a drop of water about to drip. Then I look over to my right and see a display hanging from the ceiling. It is some books, one of which is entitled "Rage," a picture of a very unhappy child's face and a camera. I don't want that there. I realize it's the same book I have at home. I think it away, and it disappears. The next morning I get up and look out the window and see a huge "moon," only it's really earth, blue with clouds and I say, "My God, where's my camera?" I look up at the ceiling and the display thing is gone and so is my camera. I look around at the night stand to the left of the bed and try to plug something in with an orange extension cord and plug. No camera. I go back to the right of the bed and see my camera there with five or six children's books piled neatly on top of it, including the one called "Rage." I am amazed and wonder how this all happened. My mother is there and I tell her of my experience, wondering if this is a wise move. Will she ridicule me or not believe me? I look out another window and see "Benjie" dog floating large in the sky like the earth was and want a picture of that. My mother is now on a balcony outside the window and the dog comes up close to sniff and play. I open a door. We are on the second floor, but the door goes to nothing. I hope I don't fall. I try to take a picture of this extraordinary dog floating so huge in the sky. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am driving a motorcycle "car" with two seats. It's sort of a race. I must stop for gas very often, like every ten feet or so, and I keep forgetting to turn the engine back on. Then I spin my wheels, wasting the gas. A dark-haired young woman in an emerald green outfit is racing me. She is behind me and never smiles. She'd ask me when I stop for gas and then I'd pass her on the road. The road is curvy like a curved staircase. A young man (maybe Dwight) is in the passenger seat. I think I wear the old-fashioned motorcycle hat with flaps over the ears, made of leather. [BL] | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am walking at the head of a group of people and we are looking at traffic to see when we can get back on the road. One woman reaches past me to kiss her man. I move aside so they can be together and the next thing I know, there are two couples in front and I am alone in back. I follow them from now on. We are now traveling and the road is now a hallway in a high-rise building. It's a boring, repetitious path around and around this square, uphill path. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I see a dog who is very enthusiastic and eager to do his job. He is asked to sniff out where the woman is who is going to give them her baby. I follow the dog as he lunges, sniffing, through a thick crowd of people. It is nearly impossible to get through, it is so dense, but somehow the dog manages to worm his way through. A path opens for him and tightly closes as he passes. He finds a woman seated in a corner holding her baby girl. She sees the dog and says sadly, "You found me." She doesn't want to give up the baby. She had already given up the sister of this baby to these same people, but she resignedly goes with the dog back to the people and gives up the baby. Now I am seated on a couch and watch as a woman comes in and is told, surprise, she's going to get married. She wears a strapless dress, black, like my "kidnapped in Mexico" dress. Out of a closet pops a silly hip minister, a boy and maybe the dog. He will perform the ceremony. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in a room and I am the "affianced" wife of Dr. Abrams. People think I am ordinary-looking and so do I, but I am supposed to be quite beautiful to be the "affianced" wife of Dr. Abrams. When I am announced, I am kind of surprised and think, "But I don't want it to be Dr. Abrams." Later I enter an elevator-like room and see what looks like a dead dog, small, cute and furry, but dead. "Ugh," I think, "I don't want to be in here with a dead dog." Then the elevator closes and I push the #3 button, but the elevator is very slow and goes to the basement first. The dog is now very much alive and is fiercely trying to eat my foot or bite my ankle. I must try to stave it off and pick up a "stick" or rectangular long, skinny piece of wood to force it back. It is a hard fight and it nearly gets me, over and over. The ride is slow and takes forever. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am walking down the street and I see Marilyn. She has seen a display for candies, popcorn and pinwheels. She calls me over. She says, "What fun! I want one of these." I look them over and say, "Well, I'm going on to the meeting. See you there." I feel a little bad leaving her there alone because she was obviously inviting me to have this fun with her. I go on and start to go in a restaurant door and see I'm going into the bar side and go on to the next door and enter. I see my group several tables deep and ask one man to move a moment so I can get past him. He looks annoyed and doesn't want to move. So I say, "OK," and go around the other way. Now I am going into the house where the meeting is and I am greeted by Carleen with a face mask of a grandmother. I laugh. Another woman enters with a mask and costume on. I say, "Oh, no one told me this was a theme and we needed to bring masks." More enter. They all have stylized faces (like in dance in movie Victor/Victoria. I go into living room. Carleen says, Just put your dessert there." I feel badly because I didn't bring anything. I go on in and see some old easy chairs and grab one and start to scoot it closer to another woman who is scooting hers closer to me. We laugh and scoot back and forth. Then I notice my thumbnail on my right hand has like a fungus on it. I look underneath and it is like the sworls in an animal pad (foot) or like a big fungus that is on old dead trees. I start to peel it off. It's like bread crust on the heel of bread and squishy. I get it off; it is quite large. I put it in a plastic bag. It is kind of gross. A girl comes up, maybe 10 years old. There is some game getting ready to be played. I get up and go into the kitchen. I want to take my clothes off, maybe adjust my bra. I am headed for a back bedroom through the kitchen and get my top off before I get there. Leroy (my cousin) is in the kitchen doing dishes and he sees and smiles. I hold my top over my breasts and try to hurry through the door. I can't get it open and Leroy asks me to help do the dishes. I don't want to, but feel guilty; again, I'm not helping out. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in some man's bed and I'm reading his sex book, looking at pictures of a step-by-step sexual encounter. I see him hugging the woman from behind and I see the vulva from the perspective of looking at from the outside, like a doctor would see or a lover. I feel sexual excitement with all these pictures. [BL] | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I have chosen a big fat book from the library about World War I. As it happens, WWI is happening and I must pack my things and move on. Robert Mitchum comes by and I tell him I will go west, and not east, because east is a false road and dangerous. He agrees. He and I have an innocent strong sense of love. We hug and kiss, and feel very connected with a sweet love. He asks me which things I'll take and I say all of them. I ask him to be tolerant and not laugh. I do take out some of the gem rocks and fossils so the load will be lighter for him and me. I have a blue backpack and a box. I decide to return the big fat book and get a smaller one. He says, "You don't have to do that," but I insist. It will make it easier for us. We need the information but it can be in a more compact form. We walk arm in arm to the library to do the exchange before we hit the road to do battle. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am sort of at Grandma Mildred's house. I am changing clothes and putting on the old outfit I wore many years ago, the reddish jeans, tight and sexy, and a reddish turtleneck. I have a long, flowing lacey slip on and have some trouble keeping it out of the jeans. I take the slip off. Jake is in the other room and is wearing a bright blue shirt and is looking much better, happier. I realize that he and Valerie are getting back together. I go on to the dining room and Valerie is there and she is pregnant. Her breasts are large and fulsome and she is dressed very pretty in a brightly colored peach dress. I am glad they are back together and wonder if it will work. Probably it will because she is pregnant again. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am showing a young woman how to take control of her life. I am steering a long, skinny boat through difficult waters, that happen to be sort of in a house, as I steer around furniture and stairs and things. I'm pretty good at it. I stand in the front and pole the boat through. Later I am going to wash myself and decide to use the sink, not the bathtub, and lather up my hands and arms and under my pits and realize this is a very effective way to get clean. I look in the mirror and see a man's face. He's a bit plump, white with reddish curly hair. I am surprised. The mirror is mostly steamed up and I scrunch down to see myself more clearly in a clear piece of mirror. Then I see some clothes have fallen in the sink. I get them out, but they are soaked: a black full skirt, a teal blue blouse, etc. Before all this, I was getting up to go to a meeting and realized the time had changed an hour but we hadn't set the clocks, so I was probably late for the meeting. I look at different clocks and ask a woman if she knows if we change them forward or backward. She didn't know. Then later, I am walking toward a house. I am successful and someone, a young woman, asks if I would ever marry. I laugh. "Why should I?" Jerome is walking by me and is very attracted, as I am independent, powerful and good at what I do. I am walking with another man he knows, and he uses that as an excuse to walk with us. He is attracted to me. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in a room that is lovely and spacious, an old-fashioned fraternity kind of room, windows, etc., but the entire room is cluttered with glassware, red glasses, dishes, etc. It is very pretty, but there is not much room to just be. I am in a bed with a woman roommate. I am smoking two very long cigarettes. I hold one and smoke the other and then switch. I have trouble keeping them from falling in the bed and starting a fire. The cigarettes are slim, long and silver in color. It's time to get up. I go on out and now I am with two men in a sort of room. They are my roommates, but they are sort of strangers. We're in this "room" until our regular room is ready. Finally it is ready, room 406. The man goes ahead. He asks if I need help walking or carrying my things. I say no. He goes around the corner and now I am alone and wondering why I didn't say yes, I could use help. I ask directions of the room and see a tall four-story building of hotel rooms and they point to the 4th floor. I start walking. Somewhere in there, I call a lawyer, or threaten to call a lawyer. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Rochelle and I (both walking) are investigating a man who publicly displays his full, erect penis. He calls it public cocking. Rochelle goes into the garage room of his house where orgy stuff is going on. I hang out outside, not really wanting to see. He's quite proud of his abilities. I look and see a large, erect penis. I see a wood pile with what looks like a carcass of a deer, but part human laying on it, no skin, and from the waist down only muscle showing. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I'm in a car, in the front seat, and talking with a cousin. We like each other and are laughing. I see a short cousin who I don't like coming toward the car. He wants to kiss me. He gets in the driver's side. I am in the middle and he tries to grab me and kiss me. I "playfully" say "ugh" and make jokes and squirm away. He really is annoyed at me and wants to connect. He's jealous of the sweet camaraderie with my other cousin. With the kissing cousin is another man I don't like who is building a square wooden box in the front seat in the driver's side and he's making rude remarks and leering. Later, I get out and go to where the short cousin is now seated on a couch. The cousin is tow headed and holds in his lap two sweet tow headed children, obviously his. I smile at the children because they are so cute and reluctantly smile at the cousin because he's being sweet and fatherly to them. He goes to put them down for their nap. The cousin hopes this has impressed me and I want to move away from him. Dovre is around. We are going somewhere. Dora is there somewhere. Maybe we are going shopping. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Jake is driving. We are in the M City back roads area and probably going to his house. He's all locked in and driving fast and I say, "Hey, come on. If you want to commit suicide go ahead, but don't take us with you." He gets mad at me and yells, "Leave me alone. I just don't want to talk about it." He's very angry and teary. I feel very touched by his pain. I try to be honest and share that it's been years since I've been in relationship. No one wants me. Maybe I'm ugly, or too hard to live with or maybe it's the disability, I don't know, but it's lonely. I empathize with his feelings right now. We have a heart-to-heart talk. It is intense and I'm touched by his powerful pain and loneliness. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I had managed to send up my own space ship five days ago, and Lucy and maybe Merle were in it. I am excited and anxious for them to return so I can find out how the adventure went. Maybe they will land today or tomorrow. I feel proud of my accomplishment. I'm kind of sorry I didn't go and excited about when and if they return. I hope I didn't send them to a doomed ending. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in a group of people and I want them to read my play, the new one I just wrote, something about sex and men and women and how they relate. They start reading it and I walk around listening and noticing that no one really listens or understands my unusual scene breaks. Finally, the man stops reading but the play is only half done and I ask him to continue reading. He says, "Naw, it's boring and besides someone said this must have been written by a fat old woman, because it puts down men and sex." I try to convince him to read the rest because then it will all balance out and they will see, but he won't. I walk over to where Sherry Lady is seated and try to talk with her. No dice. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am upset because sometime today I am supposed to be in a play but I can't remember when and where, so I call Blake to find out, but he's out of the office. I try to tell the secretary, but I can't even remember the name of the play, much less my lines. I feel some anxiety about my unpreparedness. A man then shows up and it's sort of Blake. The play has been postponed and I am very relieved. Now I see Merle is doing his comedy routine in front of a crowd in a bar and I go in to watch. All the people are crowded into one half of the room, on the side we're on. The other half is empty. I come up close to Merle, near the side of his wheelchair, and suddenly his fairly normal arm and hand reach down and grab my foot and tickle it. I hate being tickled and I squirm and yell, "Stop it! Stop it!" I am angry at him and he laughs and says, "At least you can feel it." I say, "No, that's not a good thing! It's worse than pain." Later, Charla and I go to a bar where I will perform. I go to find a place to sit and three women crowd around me. One is demanding to know what my disability is. She's very curious. I say, "Wait a minute. Go sit there and I'll answer these other women's questions and then I'll answer yours." She goes and sits. Meanwhile a Blake-type person is flirting with me and I am pleased he's sitting near me, behind where I'm sitting. He had asked me some pathetic question about my disability and I had impressed him by saying I was the performer here. I answer the old woman's question. I advise her to get a medical dictionary and refer to it. She's not to happy with this general answer, but leaves. I need to go to the bathroom, so I go to find it, saying, "I hope I don't find some sleazy guys here." I see a door and realize it's the men's room. I joke that I'd really find some sleazy ones there. I find the women's room and peek in. It's filthy. There are men in there too as well as women. I decide I'll wait and try to get back to my seat. The place is crummy and scary now and there is a boss that will try to cheat me. I just want to get out without getting Charla or myself hurt. The man, Blake, has moved and I feel sad, but realize he moved to get a better place to watch me. I decide to leave and go back where the man who pays me is, near the filthy restrooms. He counts out 57 dollars, a pathetic amount and an obvious cheat. To his surprise, I grin and say, "Thank you." I'm just pretending to be happy so I can get out alive and then call the police and tell on them. I get out and Blake is there and he decides he needs to go to the bathroom. He gets in line and for reasons I don't recall, I decide to go back and go to the bathroom in the sleazy place. I get there and the man at the counter decides to return Charla and my things (coats and things). I am surprised. He tosses them to me one at a time. The last one is my jacket which has an American flag part sewn on the front right side (left as I look at it). I squeal and say, "Oh, darn." He asks what the problem is. I look again and it is gone. I say, "I thought I saw an American flag sewn on my jacket, but I was wrong." | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I'm in a room with a good-looking Rock Hudson like man. He's sort of a guest. I leave him sitting on a chair as I go to find the swim pool. I want to swim, but I see it is empty. The men are working on some power lines or water lines and have turned the water off temporarily, all except the ocean, of course. It is lapping up to the edge of the pool. I see the square metal cage-like thing where the men are working in the shallows of the ocean. Later the water is back in the pool and I think of swimming then, but remember the water needs to stand for awhile to let the bacteria or something leave. Bonnie is there somewhere. I return to my guest. I see a book and start explaining to him that this lists all the different auto dealers and their employees. "For example," I say, "suppose you have a Chevrolet and want to call them to fix your car." I open to that page. I see lists of names. I point to a small list, the first one on the page and say, "...If you want to call an exec, you look him up on this page, but you wouldn't want an exec fixing your Chevy, so look up the mechanics." I see the name Chris D. and ask Jock's daughter if it is any relative to her. Then I say, "Of course not, with the name D., your name is S." I have some errands to run and comment that I saw the interest rate at the bank was lower. He is hurt that I went to the bank and didn't even ask if he could go along. I say, "Well, we can go tomorrow if you like." Then I look at my appointment book. I see I am going to have my car tuned, and the mechanic is named Chris D. What a coincidence. I also have a swim down in the book. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am standing on a very rickety old stage and must be careful not to stand on any of the rotten spots or it could cave in and I'd fall through. I have a mike and am explaining this to the audience. Alexander is in the audience. I joke that one doesn't know what kind of horrible rotten stuff is accumulated down there. Jerome is in the audience. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am a fast runner and live in a communist country. I am a young boy. I must get on a truck that is crossing the border to freedom. Everyone is getting on the truck. I am one of the last ones and as I try to crawl up the railed sides, the guard says it's too late, no more room. He won't let me on. I plead, hanging on and at the last second force myself on as the truck speeds off. He was going to toss me off the truck, but doesn't, now that it is moving. I clutch my $7.00 in my right hand. It is all I own. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I see a small baby boy with a huge penis and huge scrotum. I try to diaper him and am afraid I'll hurt him trying to squish all that stuff into a diaper. I am amazed at the size of it all. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in a room with C. dept. people like Judith and Dylan. They are like the Merton Circle. It's my sort of living room. There is a cat, and a Charla like small girl. Later there are two men who are aggressive and pushing us around. A Jerome-type man is from the military and he picks one of the men up easily and holds him up so his feet are off the floor. This makes the men realize what strength and expertise he has. I had been feeling strong anger at them, but now feel safer because Jerome will protect me, but then as I stand next to Jerome and he stands watching, the two men go to a phone and call for reinforcements. Now we're really in trouble. We don't do anything about it but watch. The feeling of anger is very strong. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I own a hotel, and a prince and his family want to buy it. He comes in and looks kind of silly in a red, ornate uniform with his hair messed up. He is also selling vacuum cleaners and he demonstrates one for me. He tries to vacuum up green cat shit and fur balls. I am disgusted at that stuff being on my floor and vaguely think of Ellie. The gunk clogs up the vacuum. I decide to buy some of his vacuums because it's cheaper to do that than sell the hotel. I go on to another room. The royal family will join us for a lunch. There is a square table with four panels that make the table longer. They fold in and out. I need to go to the bathroom. I go down the hall even though I know there is a bathroom off the room I was in, but I don't want to use that one, perhaps because it's closer to where people are, perhaps my mother. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Another woman and myself are standing up beside a seated man. I hold a paper and the two of us are reciting a long list of rhyming things with lots of numbers on them to the man. The woman on my right knows them by heart and I sort of know them but mumble along, looking at the paper often. One line is that some people did not believe us that they thought we had sold them a bill of goods with the Tenemen square, one long yard (the whole nine yards). We looked at the word Tenemen to double check. Yes, it was the right word. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I have a little table top desk thing that I use to paint and so on and it is wobbly. I ask this British man if he could fix it. He happily says he can. He fixes it as I ask him questions like where in England did he live. He said he lived in boarding schools. I say, "I'm sorry. That must have been hard for you, lonely." He smiles and agrees. Now that it's fixed, I decide to paint a picture. I wonder what picture to do. He smiles and says, "Why not a picture of me in a wedding, my wedding?" I laugh derisively and say, "HAA! Never. But I'll do one of you in a wedding." He wants it to be a picture of the two of us at our wedding. He likes me. He says his name is Ringo and I think that rhymes with Bingo, my name. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in bed, lying down because I have a slight cold and I'm tired. I'd been working, paper work or learning French and had suddenly run out of energy. I'm laying on my tummy. Dan comes by. I am glad to see him but the timing isn't all that good. I get up and we go into the next room, a sort of living room (maybe a hotel). He's sympathetic and wants me to get well. Now I'm standing in front of a window and the devil himself comes to me through the window and bites and holds my right arm as I hold it straight out to the side. I am paralyzed with disgust, but I realize I must go through this to be better. It feels like something horrible, partly sexual, is possessing me and I stoically stand there and endure it. Finally, it is enough and I fall back on the floor, on my back. The devil is gone and I am relieved. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am at a conference, looking for my NLP group. I peek into a side room, one step up and ask a man if this is the group (maybe dream group). He says no, they are in the main room. I look for them. I find some computers that belong to some other organization, a commercial something, and I decide to use their computer to write up my dreams. I do that, feeling a little guilty and hope they don't catch me. I get a little greedy and want to print out the stuff I typed in, or all that work would go to waste since I'd have to go home and type them in again. So I try to print it out and I see it is spitting out envelopes with small portions of the dreams on each envelope. What a waste of paper. So I stop the operation and look at all the buttons trying to get the printer to use the paper instead of the envelopes. There are lots of buttons. Nothing seems to work. It's 10 to 5:00 and I have an hour's drive home and I have to be there by 7:00 for the women's Merton's meeting at my house. I feel rushed and yet stubborn, yet I keep trying. Finally I ask two Asian students (one male, one female) if they can help. She tries to help, but doesn't know much! She does point out the tractor buttons on the side and I push the holes of the paper over the buttons. It still doesn't work. I ask a general question to aid the students, "Can anyone help me work this?" A man offers to help. He says I'm trying to print on the wrong layer of paper. It should be the paper on the bottom. I try it and it starts printing. We walk away and he likes a book I have in my hand and wants it in exchange for his help. I am annoyed. I just got that book at a used book store. It's about education and parenting children. I don't want to give up, the book and don't really want to pay him. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I come home to my apartment after being gone a week (perhaps Xmas at M City.) Dovre is there. I see the place is a mess. I need to find something and can't, too much stuff to look through. I then see a huge turkey on the kitchen counter. It is bubbling with toxic bacteria because it was left out all week and uncooked. What a waste. I tell Ellie to throw it out. I am annoyed with her for leaving it out. I ask what this huge boxed set of food stuff is from. She says it's from _____. I start looking at what's in it. There are some interesting things I might like. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am trying to help a small boy who has a severed artery in the crook of his right arm. I hold it, hoping to stop the bleeding. We are walking and nearing an old abandoned trailer house where nurses work. I'm going to stop in and let them help, but we pass and now it's my arm and I lift the bandage and see the number 1112 in red. The number is the pin pricks of the needle (where the needle went in to draw blood) and the red is the blood starting to well up again. I think the bleeding is nearly done, so I don't stop by at the trailer house. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am a young boy and I see the bad man who wants to steal the statues of a god and a goddess. The statues are very special. They come alive. I hide them up a tree, like figurines, and hope he doesn't see them. We almost make it, but they start moving and open their eyes and so he sees them. He puts them in a truck or the trunk of a car. They slither out, moving across the ground and yet still frozen in their stature forms. I hide them in a house and the bad men are all over searching. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am the wife of a Frank Sinatra man, rich and uncaring. He has a mistress and he's getting ready to go play golf with her. I am standing upstairs in our mansion looking out the large and spacious windows to see where he'll go because then I can go off and have my affair with this man. I decide to foul up his affair and go out and say, "Where are you going?" He has to lie and I feel pleased with myself. I point out that he leaves muddy tracks on the carpet. I then go to his young mistress and invite her to come with me to watch a boxing match. She agrees, not knowing what else to do and follows me. I go into an older house and start to walk upstairs. She is me now. She points out my own feet make smaller muddy tracks on the carpet. I show her two choices, a sharp metal pointy thing or a less dangerous one. I want us to see "real" boxing where men hurt each other for real and there is blood. She doesn't want to see that at this. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in a cafeteria of a school. You have to purchase the meal all together. I say, "But I don't want all of it. I only want two pieces of bacon." The man at the cash register is annoyed with me. I say, "I think you should only pay for the part you eat." He is adamant. I refuse to comply. My way makes more sense. I decide to leave and go to the movies. I am talking to Merle. He has seen the movie. He liked it. A man who might be gay says I will love the hero. He is very feminine (like he is saying "a hunk" or beautiful). | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | An older man lets me come live in his home. I am a young woman and my child is Charla. We move in and he shows me the rooms. I feel like a visitor. He sits on the couch and I lay down with my head on his lap. He is kind, but I feel on guard. I get up and he says this is the room. I look around. I am thinking that his wife liked it like this and I must not say what I really feel about it, because it will offend him or hurt his feelings. He asks me what I think about the furnishings and this huge painting he has. I look at the gold, old couch and the garish huge painting. I pause, thinking that his wife must have had meaning for each thing, because the interior design wasn't following a school of thought I could see. I look at the painting. I say, "I don't like it. It's ugly." He smiles happily. It was a test and I passed. Now he goes outside. I call for Charla. She comes down the stairs and there is a small baby there too, maybe a year and a half old. I go outside to see where the old man is. He is seated, resting in his back yard as a woman and a man are riding mowers and cutting the rich, full, green grass. When he sees me, he hurriedly gets up and gets on a rider mower too and helps cut the grass. I let the baby and Charla play in the yard as I look around. I see that it's a large, square yard that ends abruptly on the left side at a hedge. The left side is just a thin strip of lawn. Beyond the yard is a dry and brown landscape, obviously without care or water, somewhat like M City. I notice the contrast between the lush yard and the surrounding landscape. Then I look for Charla and see her in a tree eating something. I get concerned. I call her to me and demand to know what's in her mouth. I see a long, thin thing like are on oak or some kind of tree that may grow nuts. I want her to open her mouth and she stubbornly refuses. I pry her mouth open and find, instead of the horse chestnut things, a bunch of small plastic packages that sewing things come in. I pull them out saying, "You could swallow these things and get sick. Don't put these in your mouth." I take them back to the porch where a box is that the sewing things belong in. I replace them, hoping the old man doesn't notice. He comes up and sees, but is not concerned. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am riding a bicycle with a man. We each have our own bikes. We are mountain biking in the wilderness. With fairly good ease, we are biking up steep hills, covered with trees and underbrush. As we near the top, he laughs and says we can take the easy way. A rough gravelly road is there. We get on it and reach the top. Here we see a TV monitor and it indicates a hard hat area. This means there is construction going on and we peer over the edge and look down into a mountainous valley to see men building and clearing. We see terraces being cleared. This is a terrible use of the wilderness environment. A group of people come up near us to sing protest songs, songs of protestations. It's like a church choir. Rochelle decides to join them. She says with confidence that she will have taken over by the end of the song. She joins the bass section. I listen and sing along from my position near the edge where I can see the men working. I then decide to join with the choir. I go over and see the people are standing on a rock platform and I can't see how to get up there to be with them. So I decide to stand near them in front, dead center, I notice wryly. I then scoot over to the side. Rochelle does her power thing and takes over the bass section as she said she would. Then we go back to the same position near the edge. They are having a meeting. Rochelle and I are strategizing. We decide we can't win the whole battle and get them to stop construction, so we try to suggest they make their places wheelchair accessible. We even are conciliatory there and say, "OK, not the whole place, but at least ramps instead of stairs." Lucy joins us; she is angry and yelling and we try to shush her so she won't spoil the work we've already accomplished. Now we try to get her to get in the cart. I'm in the back seat behind the driver's side and I call her to me. She is being an ingenue and not paying attention to the whole picture. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am trying to get a hotel room and being demanding. I'm not getting my way. Now I see a scrooge with alien-like eyes and he's really self-centered. Derwood Kirby lost his job at the factory and Scrooge says, "Well then, you can choose any thing you want from my things." Derwood is touched and chooses his favorite. Scrooge says, "Good, I'll be happy to give it to you at 1 percent off the normal price." Derwood leaves in disgust at the insensitivity of Scrooge. Later, I see me on an English cable TV show. I am wearing my half glasses and doing Evangeline faces. I have fat wrinkles under my chin. I look old. I keep swiveling my head back and forth like I'm on a couch between two people and trying to give eye contact with them both as I brightly talk on in my interview. Then I do a Evangeline shtick and am funny. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I dream something that I interpret means I must kill the mother inside me (the negative mother). Then I dream something about that not being right. I must let the negative mother die. That is better. Then I am an older woman who calls my family together to announce that I am running for the Senate. The president of the United States called me and asked me to serve. The women in the family are happy. My husband and son or son-in-law are unhappy, especially when I answer the question of how much will I earn. The answer is $60,000. This is more than my husband makes. I hope he will be able to handle this. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in danger. There are aliens and we must run. A woman says, Synchronize your watches." I see mine is set now for 10 of 1:00. We take a deep breath and start walking briskly down the sidewalk. Now we must do what is called chaining. There are fringes of styrofoam-like curls like packing material on our ankles and when we come to a doorway or checking area, we must give up one chain. The door was coming frequently (like taxing booths), the paths are branching out and soon we will lose all our chains and then God knows what will happen to us. I think I carry a child or two in my arms. We are like fleeing Jews. [BL] | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am having a bowel movement, after being constipated for a while. I squat over a hibachi thing next to the toilet and push. A hard piece comes out. It falls and gets on the carpet. Some more follow and now I have to pick them up and put them in the toilet. Charla comes by, eating a roll, and she thinks this will be fun and picks up some of the round balls of shit to help me. I say, "Oh no! put that down. Don't touch the roll now. Go wash your hands and don't put them in your mouth." I get up to walk her to a place she can wash her hands when the toilet starts acting strange like it's going to overflow. We back away. It disgorges lots of shit and water noisily like an agitated washing machine gone mad. I go grab a telephone, but the line is dead, so I go out into the hall down to the next classroom and say to some people working in there, "The toilet is overflowing, and the telephone doesn't work. This is an emergency." Several of the men come following me back to where the toilet is. Joe K from the community college is right behind me. I say, "There it is," only it's perfectly quiet now, but it has moved to another spot. How can it do that? I say, "Look out, there's lots of shit around." He laughs and says, "There sure is!" "It stinks," I say. He agrees cheerfully. He then decides to flush it to see if it still does it. It rumbles and we back away and soon muddy brown water is being thrown out. More stinky shit! Now I'm backed to the entrance door and Tyler and others join us. I say, "What a metaphor! I can throw a lot of shit and it won't hurt, just stink! and the phone doesn't work either." Tyler and I smile at the wonderful metaphors. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am kneeling on the floor where there is a terrible mess of cheese pieces and slices all over and paper and stuff. The kid that made the mess refuses to clean it up so I, in exasperation, decide to do it. The door opens and Andrea comes in and says, "I've had a very bad day, but I am managing and everything will be all right." She looks down at me and sees I've had an equally bad day. I gather up the stuff and carry it into the kitchen. We and other women are talking about a trip of some kind, packing for it and suddenly it's time to go. I encourage a woman to go spontaneously without taking anything, leaving the book behind. She hesitates and then does. It is freeing, and scary. I am now walking down a flight of stairs, perhaps carpeted, and telling someone, perhaps Ellie, that my mother and Aunt Naomi were the bossy, controlling ones and Millie and Bonnie were the fun-loving, playful ones. Too bad. Ellie lays out a row of objects on the stairs to demonstrate this concept. Now I have no place to step, I am blocked, so she has to move some of them so I have a place to step. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am a counselor and at a school. I am working on a case. I go to the administrator's office and he tells me of a woman student that went crazy, screaming and saying things. I take notes and then interview the boyfriend of the husband. He tells me something and I say, "Uh huh. I see. That explains it" (over the phone). I hang up and tell the man that the woman had had a series of tough stresses and when she entered the classroom, the racial slur of the white male student was the straw that broke the camel's back. She snapped. She'll be all right now. He is very impressed with my skills and we start to walk across campus. The boyfriend says, "I want to tell you what she said." I say, "You cannot. It would be unethical to break confidence with a client. If it were me alone, you could tell, because I'm a professional." He really wants to tell, but doesn't. We walk down some curvy stairs. I tell the administrator man of my troubles with the men I work with. They don't accept me. They have some way of deciding who gets space and time and won't let me in on it. I lay tiredly on a round canvas frame where a partial design is rug hooked in. I sigh and say, "Sometimes I think I'll just jump in and take it." Later, the man is sort of Capt. Picard and we have gone off together for a vacation. A woman (me) is cooking or stirring up a special dough. A stick like a wooden hair comb made of twigs is placed in the middle of the dough and the new ingredients can only be poured on the one side. It is an old tradition and is passed on from one to the other (generation, perhaps). He and I are going to have a wonderful time seeing the sunrise and set and swimming and loving. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | In the first dream there is a Russian and I am an American and he likes me and I like him. We flirt and enjoy each other. Later, there is another man and I want to feel the same way with him, only it isn't working out. It's boring. We are in a car and I want to find some food to eat, like a sack lunch or picnic. I find some stuff between the door and the front seat, but it isn't all that appetizing. I notice a high wind coming and we run for an old dilapidated barn for cover. We get in and there is no way to close an old broken wooden window, no glass. We go to a corner and sit on a hay-strewn bench. I look out and see entire groves of trees being smashed by the force of the wind. Fortunately this is barren country and not much around to be destroyed. I try to feel good about cuddling up with this guy, but it is boring. There is nothing in the barn but us, the wooden bench and some bits of hay. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I want to publish my book and some sleazy agent man is going to help me. It's going to cost. Some woman says I spent ____ money on my book and I said, "By the time we print it, it will cost us about 5 or 6 thousand dollars." It's a sort of one-upmanship. Then there is a series of shootings. One man shoots another and two men stand off and fire at each other point blank. I am appalled. One man is my friend. He's laying face down in a pool of blood. A woman cries and wants to help, but is afraid to touch him. I kneel down and inspect the back for a wound. I find none, so I turn him over and see a small bullet hole (22 caliber) near the base of the throat (where a tracheotomy might be). It is bleeding just a little. I am relieved. Then I see a hole near the chest and try to stop the bleeding. He will live. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am at Grandma Mildred's house. They are remodeling. They are going to make a huge bathroom where the second living room was. A white pipe is run up high on the wall and a huge tub is already installed. I say, "This will be great, now that it's just the two of you, but what if one of you dies and then it will be too big for just one?" I go into the kitchen. A woman and a man, both young, are passing a small feminine black hat back and forth to one another in a sort of ritualistic way. It is on a long white piece of crochet lace. I encourage them to do this ritual while they talk. The boy/man doesn't want to; he thinks it's silly. The young woman steps outside, perhaps she hears a noise. I follow. We are out in the wild fields now and I see some men, bad men, and they are trying to kill another man. Three of them have him down on his back and are choking him. I realize I am witnessing a murder. I say somewhat mildly, "You had better let him go because there are witnesses now." They hesitate and then let go, but I am worried. They could kill me. I look at them closely so I can remember details to tell the police. I say, "They are late 20's, early 30s. One man is in a white t-shirt and has a slight pot belly. They are very dangerous." They move away to regroup and the woman and I decide we'd better flee. Now we run and they chase and somehow I'm in an underground room with crates and boxes and we run and run. We climb a metal ladder thing attached to a wall and there are things from our car there and I'm trying to take these things with us but I must abandon them One rolls and drops, making a loud sound which gives us away and the men come running. We crawl up into a warehouse room and crawl into a cardboard box and hide. They are searching and are very close. It's almost like we are out in the open, pretending to be covered in the box and hoping they don't see us. As they talk, they seem to be moving closer and closer until it seems inevitable they would stumble on us, but they don't. One man crawls up high and swings across the room on a white rope thing. Now there is a tiny, bald-headed child, a child of one of the men, standing nearby staring at us. He/she sees us and we hold our breath, waiting to be told on. But she doesn't. The father of the child says to her, "We have to go now, to find those women, but you have to stay here and you better be good." It seems cruel and abusive. They leave, going down the ladder we had come up on, shutting and locking the child in this room with us. Then the child comes directly to us and then shows us a huge grain or freight elevator. We get in and ride it down. We see my red car and run for it. The men are chasing us. We get in the car, I have the key and we drive (I drive like hell). They are in a car in hot pursuit. It's dark, the road/trail is dirt and skinny and curvy. I drive fast and furious. They're right on our tail. Then they are in front of us and headed right for us to crash or block us and I swerve and go up a steep embankment, up onto railroad tracks. Very clever, they think. They turn and pursue. Now we are driving down the tracks, hoping a train doesn't come at us and bushes on either side of the road so we couldn't exit if we wanted to. Now we are crossing a train trestle and yep, there's a train coming. We get off the trestle at the other end and down a steep embankment just at the last second and the men don't. They crash in flames. We stop running. Now we are out of the car in the bushes and I see flames, a wild fire. I say to the man, "Let's get going." He says we should stay. I ask, "Why? The fire is coming it will come here and we'll burn." He says, "We must stay here." I want to leave, but I don't want to abandon him. I say, "What if it does come here?" He says, "It won't if this is kept mowed down and the fire will not come here to us." It's coming, I can see it. Now I feel real fear because the men are dead and spirits now and that makes them more dangerous. They have stronger powers and are invisible. I want out of there. I say, "What if it comes anyway?" He says, "It's OK, I have poison. I can give you some and we'll die." Just then a woman with dark hair, with mime white face and in a white linen business tailored suit, walks elegantly with a dead pan face toward us. Her face is long and angular. I am afraid!! | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in the passenger side of a car and we stop to see a piece of furniture in a garage sale on the side of the road. It is a wooden display case that has rows of small drawers or boxes that rotate like a display watch case. I am intrigued and think it will be perfect for my small things and jewelry. I see a large price tag on it that says $89. I think I can afford that so we get out to look. The family that is selling it is very excited and bring me lots of accessory things that go with it free of charge, a large, plastic yellow top which I think looks cheap, and so on. I decide to buy it. Now I see a small chocolate Eskimo pie man who is going out to explore the world. He hops along and I sort of follow. He decides to go into a cafe where this man has gone in. A small tiny woman his size comes out and says, "Oh, you are my size." She likes that. He goes on. Inside, he hops into a refrigerated display case, glass, and stands with other stick figure candies. I now go to find the man. I see him settling in at a table and I go sit at the table next to him, pretending I don't see him. He sits down next to me, surprised. He is tall, lanky and dark-haired. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Two men, like beat poets of the 50's, are traveling and I am a reporter who comes to interview them. He tells me about their life. How they are free as birds and only have relationships with women who know the rules. It's only short-term, sex and drugs, going from one woman to the next, no commitments. A young, dark-haired woman comes up to him. He's in the pickup getting ready to drive on to the next place. She has a paper to be autographed and asks to come along. He pulls out a dictionary to look up the words to say to explain the rules to her, like she speaks a different language. He explains, pointing to the words in a dictionary. She smiles and speaks plain English, agreeing with the rules. She'll do anything to be able to be with them for a while. Now the other man, more flambuoyant, isn't there and the one man is driving and I'm in the passenger side, talking to him, still interviewing. But now the man asks me quietly and with feeling what I'm really doing here. Why do I go around interviewing people? I say, "Searching, trying to find someone who is truly unique." I say, "I can't find anyone because they might have unique qualities on the psychological level, like different life experiences and different parental values etc., but deep down, we are all the same. No one is unique." I smile at him and say, "You can imagine how intrigued I was by you," and I curl around him, in a hug. He thinks, as I lay my hand down near his lap, that I am about to perform manual sex and starts to automatically get ready to receive it, but then he realizes I am just hugging and cuddling and nervously asks if I want ___ a drug like cocaine. I smile and say no. I say, "I thought you were the one, but, no. I see you are not. You are the same as everyone." He smiles in recognition, sadly. "You can imagine how thrilled I am to hear this," he says. I smile. He gently places his hands over my breasts, on top of my shirt. It's a sexy gesture because you would expect him to try to fondle the breasts to get me excited, but he doesn't, he just gently pats me there. I put my hands over his in a touching gesture, and pat his hands. It's sweet, poignant and sexy. I feel a sensual pleasure. This is impossible and we both know it. I see the dirt mountainous road we are on, off in the wilderness alone. It narrows and I see ahead of us a brick wall, like a fireplace in a living room and bushes in the road. We slow down and stop. We neither of us move, because it would break the magic spell. I want us to continue getting closer. The moment freeze-frames and I wake up, feeling sweet and sad, and wanting something. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am on skates and I am skating down a street when I suddenly take a left turn to a curvy downhill road with a dropoff on the left side and buildings on the right. I feel apprehensive about this decision because I'm not so good at skating and I could make a mistake and go over the side, not being able to control my speed and end up going over the edge. Off I go anyway, almost against my will or better judgement. Then I see a long steep set of stairs that is like a ladder. It is so steep that I go over the edge; I hang on to the rail on my right and speedily skate from stair to stair. I am amazed I can do so well, barely managing not to fall and hurt myself. Jock is around somewhere. Maybe he's skating too. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I go into a room, possibly a bedroom, where I find Ellie to ask her to help me out. I want to go swimming, but didn't remember to bring my swimsuit. She says, "How can you swim then?" I say, "I can borrow a t-shirt and shorts from you and swim in them." She sighs, not wanting to go to the trouble. Now I see Charla, naked, and I pat her butt and feel like I did when the children were tiny babies. The butt is so cute and soft and I feel tenderness. She grabs onto me and hugs me and we laugh. The butt is not completely like a baby's, though there are wrinkled patches like my butt. I ask Ellie to find something for me, maybe photos and I point to where they are. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | There are a bunch of tiny burros and we try to ride them. If we stay on long enough, we win a prize. The prize is permission to make love to a person of our choice, if they agree. Several men try to ride and don't make it. I manage to hang on and win. I am given a small container with birth control stuff in it. I like this one man and am shy and want to ask him, but am afraid to. I am on a bed area that belongs to my parents. Then I put a small kitten in a car where his puppy already is. I roll up the windows, being careful to position the special breathing section correctly so they can't hop out, but have holes in the glass for air to come in. I check all the windows and am closing the back trunk one when a man in a black car comes by. He wants me to go with him, but I don't. I get into the driver's seat of the car with the animals. I try to lock the door and have trouble. I try three times and get it firmly shut. I turn the key on. The gearshift is funny-looking, thick and angular. I've never driven before and am nervous. I go out into the street very carefully and slow. In the center of this dream was a part where I choose another man to make love to and get into a cubicle and we start to thump and bump when the man of my real choice is upset and tries to figure out a way to intervene. He does interrupt, maybe making a noise or sending someone in or slamming a door. I come out before the thing has gone to orgasm. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am at Ellie's counselor. He wants to get information from me to help Ellie. We have to make another appointment because something isn't working out for this time. I feel frustrated. I think about going across the street to do some shopping, but decide not to. Now, I am driving. I decide after I start driving that I want to go to Payless and buy some things. I discover that I have gotten on the exit of the freeway and I'm going the wrong way. I stop, turn around, and try to find the way to cross the freeway and get back to the Payless store. It seems impossible. I get on the freeway going toward home, finally going the right direction, but now I'm a passenger, with Doug driving and Lydia in the middle. I see an exit and say, "Let's go here, maybe it will take us back to Payless." We turn. I deliberately give Doug the silent treatment as he is being obnoxious as usual. I really don't like him a lot. As we drive back on a highway, we are right on the edge of the ocean. Doug says, "Look how beautiful, the sun, anyway, the light." I can't help but agree. It is a wide, blue expanse of water and it's beautiful. I see a huge sign that says "Payless" off in the distance and we round a corner to discover the tiny road we are on stops abruptly at an embankment and doesn't connect with the curved road that does go to Payless. Now we are out of the car and I think about walking there, but it's a long way on arthritic feet. Doug has a tiny "6 shooter," which is even less dangerous than a 22, a pistol. A part falls out of it on the road. It's lightweight and cheap. I think he was threatening me with it. I see Uncle Dale and Aunt Bridget jogging down the road. We chat. I get angry at Doug and stand up to his silly gun threat of shooting me. I decide to leave them and the car and walk back to Payless. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am living in a 3-room apartment that has a downhill slope in one of the rooms. I have a sweet, chubby baby boy and I've been ill, but now I'm recovering and I get up and carry him around with me and feed him food and hug him and love him. He laughs and chuckles and is very content. I also do exercises by walking from one end of the apartment to the other, back and forth, back and forth. I look out the bedroom window and see on the hill right behind the apartment men who are camping there because they are homeless. They are on horseback and have makeshift tents. It is icy and slick outside and I step out, slide down the ramp and slide back up and back in. The letter A in fancy cursive is written in the fogged-up bedroom window. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am trying to return home and am late, and as the plane is starting to leave, I leap up on the top of the thing and crawl over to the front cockpit into the co-pilot's chair. The pilot chides me not to cut it so close next time and I then go back to a regular seat. It's a propeller plane, not a jet. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am going up some stairs and then down and there is a sort of playful game going on with a man. We are mutually attracted. I ask a group of half grown boys to surround me so he can't see me and they do. I'm in the center, laughing and peeking out at him. He peeks in and sees me as I lay down on the floor, laughing. He recognized me because of my legs and feet. They were female. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am at a party in a rich woman's mansion. I go for a walk to find the bathroom, I go down a curved, ramped floor. I see an orchestra set up ready to play. I find the bathroom. A woman goes in and she says, "What a mess." I peek in and agree. I decide to wait. I walk on, looking for another one. I pass the orchestra and see a large carnival ride-like thing that swoops up and down and under it is a large water pond. There is a green alligator and wild cats that eat things. I think of going on the game and decide not to, those cats look vicious. I return the way I came and see a beautiful cello on the ground. I look more closely and ask the oriental man if that is a cello. He says, "Yes." I say, "It looked for a moment like a dulcimer, the color or type of wood, but I did think it was a cello." He smiles and then admires my skirt. It is a cotton wrap-around with designs and pictures that represent the history of Mexico. He is intrigued and bends down to look closely at the hem area. Suddenly, he rips off a section of the skirt and takes it. I am angry and say, "Wait, you made a hole." He ignores me. I walk on, trying to decide what to do. I decide I'll go find a policeman and return to get that piece of my skirt from him. I look at the ramp on the right, thinking of going back that way, but it looks too long and I'd get tired. So I go back the way I came up to the original level. I see Nate and feel sad and wistful. His wife is nearby and I think she may be the owner of this mansion. He stands close to me and we chit chat, but we look at each other with longing. She stops by and chats and walks out the door. Nate is going with her and he pauses to say goodbye like to an acquaintance, but we stand close and I brush my hand over his just to touch. It is a tender, secretive moment. He goes out. I turn to rejoin the party. Now I want to go home, to the old M City house, but first the woman of the house (sort of Nate's wife) says, "Why don't you take this carpet, for Charla." I agree and together we roll it up and she hands me pieces of tape and I wrap it around and around to secure the roll of carpet. Then Nate comes up and smiles gently and says, "Why don't I help carry that for you." I know this means he'll come in and we'll be lovers again. I want to resist, sort of, but I don't. The woman steps away and Nate says, "First, put this rose in my hair." He kneels like some ritual thing and I pluck a white rose or two from the table decoration and stand behind him to place the roses in the ponytail of long brown hair. It is touching and tender, and a ritual. I pat his head, maybe kissing it lightly. He says, "Move the family thing." I look to the table and see a big plate of food on a holder warmer dish and realize he means to move the plate so he can put the carpet roll on it for a moment before he heaves it on his shoulder, and we walk down the road to the M City house and some alone time for ourselves to make love. The carpet is short and small. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am on a bus as a sort of head resident type. Lots of things happen and we are headed home. It is late and I am very tired. I fall into bed, exhausted. I live in a Uni house kind of residence. This one morning I feel better and I walk down to breakfast. It feels wonderful. I don't know how long I'll be able to keep it up, but for now it feels grand. A man I like comes in and sees me walking. He's so happy, he and I hug, standing up and kiss and now it's like we have declared our love to each other. We are interrupted with the news that I am going to be the dance queen tonight, like homecoming queen for the prom or something. This is going to be a long night and I wonder if I will be able to manage being so active on my feet so much. I have to dance with every man. The older man who runs the place insists I walk across the gym and stand at the edge of the bathtub and then walk all the way across the gym to where a long table is. I protest this will hurt me too much, but he insists. I do it and the young men line up one at a time to dance with me. They each bring a card with some phrases written on them, like cards you get with flowers. A young man announces each one. One man and I dance. Then I have to walk back to the bath tub area. This goes on for awhile and I want my loved one to come dance with me before it's too late and I can't move. Again I'm at the table and I just refuse to do the long walk. I go straight out to the dance floor. The older man is angry and insists I do it the "right" way. I mouth the words "fuck off" and go back to the table. The announcing man says, "Did I hear swear words?" I say, "You didn't HEAR them!" Then the music is wild and Latin and I start dancing toward the center of the floor all by myself. A woman comes up to me and says, "This will be terrible." I ask, "What will?" She says, "You're older than us and you'll end up living here and then you'll be 85 years old and our children will see you and be afraid." I say, "You mean like I'll be the old witch of the village?" She says, "Yes." This upsets her. I'm a little annoyed myself at her. I see a man dancing across the floor and he's wonderful at it. He's dark and Latin. I dance to him and it's so graceful, like we're skating only we're in stocking feet (nylons for me). We glide and swirl around and now his girlfriend is jealous and tries to cut in. The three of us do a kind of duck and pull dance. Then I glide out of it and they go off. The older man has shoved the big bathtub over to the center so I can still do the ritual, but not walk so far. I smile at his tenacity. He glares at me because he had to compromise. I go stand in front of the tub. There is lots of steaming warm water in it and I feel my aching, limping joints start to feel better by standing in the warm steam. Behind the tub is a young man, seated. He has a bright tow head blonde crew cut. He makes a smart remark and I grab him by the hair and pull him to standing like he's a naughty little boy. He grimaces. Now I hear my love. He's drunk and he's coming to the dance to start a food fight with catsup and mustard to break up the dance so I can get away and off my feet. It's a rescue. I catch his eye and he looks at me lovingly but drunk. He's wearing black pants. Some of the young women come up to me to help me get out before the fight gets going good. I say, "Wait, my cards and gifts. I want them." Someone goes to collect them for me and we go out. I am relieved I can soon sit down and not hurt so much, and sad I never got a dance with my love. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | A beautiful Barbie doll kind of woman is laying in a coffin-like box with her lover, a beautiful man. They are going to kiss but the woman is dead, and her body begins to dissolve molecule by molecule and is absorbed into the mountain, a stone mountain in a pyramid shape. I see the blood cells in there and wonder how she can still be alive, but she is. It is necessary to get her out, the man still loves her. And through some Herculean effort, she is pulled out of the rock, molecule by molecule and put back together. I am amazed she is still alive. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | There is a bad guy that can emanate some horrible, painful sound or radiation that keeps everyone his prisoner. Just at the moment he turns it on, I as a superman kind of being disintegrate and disperse my molecules as I fly up and away. He's upset I got away. But now I must go back and fight him in order to save my family, now frozen in his power. I go, via instructions from some feminine voice, to a platform up in the clouds and there are some remote control-like game boards in a basket. I pick up one. The voice says, "This one can be adapted well." I look at it closer. It is a chess game, electronic. I say "Ah, the good old chess game," satisfied it can be modified to fight this powerful man and save my family. I turn it over and look at the back side of it and see the tiny shapes of the black "men" or pieces. I want to review the rules of how they are allowed to move. [BL] | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | There are three tanks of fish in this living room. I go look. I am holding a tiny rectangle that is maybe a 1/4 inch thick plastic enclosed piece with tiny fish in it. I wonder how they can be still alive, there's no way to get food to them. I realize I haven't feed the fish in the three big tanks for years. I see large goldfish that appear dead, floating on their sides. I get the fish food and pour some on the top of the water and the fish swarm, boiling all around desperate for food. I feel really bad for them. I wonder how they survived. I see Howard's face around. Later, some child says, "The baby is hungry." I walk up some stairs and down a long hall to the back bedrooms. There are a lot of rooms. I haven't been here for a long time. Dovre as a pre-teen is with me. I find the bedroom where the baby is. She's laying on an old uncomfortable double bed. She is 3-years-old now. I am going to dress her and I'm looking for matching shoes that will fit, but can't find a matching pair. They are all colorful plastic see-through bootie slippers. I say, "It's about time we moved you into a better room. You're a big girl now. You aren't a baby." It's like a graduation statement and I make it seriously. I take her by the hand, and we walk back down the long hall with up and down stairs in it toward the front rooms where I live. She says, "How come I haven't been here very much? It's important to be here." I say, "I don't know, but now you will live here." I feel badly I've neglected her. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I decide to invite friends and family over for Thanksgiving and am preparing a big dinner. My mother is in the kitchen fixing food, I am scurrying around getting extra chairs. The house is big, with lots of long tables end to end down some long hall. I am walking and enjoying it. Rochelle and another woman in a wheelchair comes. I look at Rochelle's new wig, brown and kind of ugly looking. I compliment her and say it's pretty. She smiles and they go sit and wait as I am busy with greetings. I see uncles and cousins and then my Grandmother Agnes. I am very happy to see her and hug her a long hard time. "I'm so glad to see you again," I say. She says, "Do you remember Sandy?" I think her son. I laugh and say, "Oh yes, when we were children, I was called Sandy and I named him that." I go on and finally find a place at the far end of this endless feast. We get turkey and potatoes and there is plenty, but I realize we didn't get the special treats, the cranberry sauce, the salads and biscuits and so on, so I say to a woman down the table, "Could you ask the captain (of an airplane) to pass down the sauce?" She's embarrassed to do it. I ask the co-pilot to do it. He hesitates and I get annoyed and say, "Oh, for goodness sakes, I guess I'll just do it myself!!" I get up, which shames the woman, who tries to ask the Capt., who ignores the request. I walk passed him and find salads and jellos and biscuits and cake and lots of cream cheese special dishes and start gathering them up; apple butter, applesauce. I see co-worker Gordon and clap him happily on the shoulder and say, "I must have sat at the wrong end of the table. We didn't get all this." He smiles and we joke about how I'm just a complainer. A woman who is gathering up the leftovers says, "What are you going to do with all this?" I say, "Don't worry, it won't go to waste. I'll take it to the babies in the hospital, maybe to the homeless." | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am given the job of working a "board" sort of like at Ellie's radio station, or like a switch board. I don't get much training and I'm trying to remember the sequences. A small red light comes on and it is labeled star. I know this is a "star" message and it is important to hear it. I push some buttons hoping that would work, but it doesn't. I keep trying different sequences and objects. I remember I first have to pick up a bottle labeled "star" and put some of that substance in something. I look for the bottle. I find lots of different ones but not the right one. Red Buttons walks in and I want to talk with him. I enjoy his company but I must first finish what I'm doing. I say to him, "I'm sorry, but I'm new at this job and I have to find the star." He says "OK, but it looks like they didn't give you much training." I say, "No, only a few hours before I took over." He says, "You shouldn't have accepted that." I feel annoyed and say, "Just a minute." I climb up a bookcase-like thing to look on the top shelf. I find different bottles all just out of reach and knock a few over in my search. Some are like onion powder bottles. They are almost it, but not quite. I feel frustrated. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Kenneth is leaning out of a window and turned around looking up to the next floor and trying to kiss a man who is leaning down toward him. I watch, surprised, because Kenneth is married to a woman. Later, I am going on a vacation. I am catching a plane. I get on and realize I have not packed a thing. I had time to do so, but somehow I didn't manage to do it. I wear a black sheath dress. I have no meds, no other clothes, no books. I wonder how I'll manage. Now I'm on a boat-like thing and it's plowing through waters that look shallow, but must have a channel deep enough in it or we wouldn't be able to move. It's time to dress for dinner and a man wants to meet me, so I open a closet and see lots of formals and fancy dresses, nothing appropriate. I look through them, but don't find anything usable. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am at a reunion and I see Darryl. He stands near me and I can feel the same sweet sexual excitement I felt around him. He and I talk, sort of aware of the feelings but not acting on them. He then begins to kiss me and I like it very much and start to want more. I am walking and holding his arm like he is a gallant escort. He sees a friend of his and hesitates to introduce us. Perhaps he is remembering my disability and is embarrassed, but he does introduce us. The man isn't very warm. Then Darryl and I sit in a manual wheelchair. I am semi laying down in the chair and he is on top of me, kissing. I say, "We can write for awhile, but then maybe I can come to you in Texas or you can return here to me." We really want to make love now. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am traveling to a city in California to live. I'm driving a car that needs fixing. I am going up a hill that is so steep that I am now climbing hand over hand like a mountain climber and it is scary because I might lose my grip. A young man from the California town meets me and says, "Why did you take that way?" I say, "I don't know." So now I'm driving down a road, with curves and woods. Then we see the town, a small country town with one main street. Now I am a woman in a power wheelchair and the person coming to this town for a job is a man in a wheelchair. He says, "Are there any ramps in this town?" The man guiding us says there wasn't a one, but by tomorrow every place will have one. The young man says, "There, that's the place I'll be working," and points to a counter and a cash register, in a sort of drugstore, gift shop place, but now a sort of city picnic thing is going on and I walk down the street. I say to the young man who is wearing a leather jacket, "Come see the show." He says, "I'll be playing my guitar over there." Katrina and her son are there. She says, "They'll do magic tricks over here." We follow her and watch as she pulls out a few cheap firework tricks for her son. I sit and the young man lays down in front of me, relaxed, on the grass. I look at him and then quietly reach over and kiss him, which surprises him. I am basically inquiring if he would be receptive to this sort of thing. He squirms and says something about already having a girlfriend. I guess I'm too old for him. My feelings are not hurt; I simply asked. He's free to respond anyway he wishes. I look over to a young woman in front of him and ask with my eyes about the kiss, but we both pass on it. Now Katrina is explaining the trick, which involves 25 round, tiny disks in a pile. The son has a Bic lighter and has trouble lighting it. It clicks and clicks. I think, "I'm glad I don't do tricks that require fire, too unpredictable." | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am called to go to Dustin Hoffman's house. He sends a limo. I sit in the back, and all the windows are smoked glass and I feel like I'm in a box. I can't see out. We get there, after I type in all the sensations I experience, like outside noises or when we round a curve in my mini computer. It'll make a great scene in a movie someday. The door opens and an older woman, an employee of Dustin's, reaches in to assist me out of the car. I am standing and a woman is on each side gripping my arms. I say, "Let go of me." They don't. I insist, getting very angry. I repeat, "Let go of me," escalating in anger, over and over. Finally I shake them off. We get in an elevator and I push #2, the usual floor I go when I visit Dustin's house. But we go up to the top floor and I see through a glass window that we are now at an attic toy room, a secret place where he is himself. I get out and Dustin dressed as a child on a small tricycle toy comes putting up. I keep trying to see him as an adult in child's clothing, but he looks like a child with an adult face. His employees are playing games with him and I feel sad for an older woman who is talking baby talk. How demeaning, but I also admire her acting abilities. Then Dustin groans in pain and lays down on the floor. I get on my knees by him and bend down and kiss him gently on the lips. He has a migraine headache and is in terrible pain. I whisper, "This had better be real, or you are dead meat." He smiles weakly, acknowledging he knows that. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am a leader and the chores have all been assigned. A man is supposed to do the dishes. I pass a clouded mountainside and see a yellow wooden horse, adult-sized, but like a child's toy, half out of the clouds. I call it to someone's attention. "Look at that," I say. Then it comes alive and is now a very artistic looking man in a leotard full body suit of swirling yellows and greens. He runs fast past us to my quarters. He is sneaking down the mountain to eat my food. I guess he doesn't have any up there. But the man and I have been so busy fighting or defending that the dishes haven't been done for days and he sees a bowl of cream of wheat, but no small bowls to eat out of. I look around and say, "Well, I guess we don't have any bowls left." I am annoyed with the man, because I've done all my chores and haven't nagged him, but enough is enough. I tell him he needs to get on it. I am willing to help some. I decide to give two of my paper bowls to the other man until the dishes are finally done. Now I am trying to tie a scarf around my waist like a seat belt and it is too loose. There is a dolly and a tiny baby dolly. I'm holding them and trying to tie the scarf and it is cumbersome and difficult. Finally I get the idea to knot the scarf up shorter and put the two dollies together so they can hold each other. It works, sort of, only this big bulk is still all on my lap and gets in my way. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am sort of a office worker or a head resident again, only Rochelle and I work together for the, whatever organization it is. I decide to start cleaning up a corner on my desk and discover lots of old things that had been around when I was head resident at Uni house. I find several dead plants. I exclaim at one, "Oh, it's dead, I think," and wonder if it got water, if it would still grow new shoots. I find some necklaces and ask if anyone knew who's they were. A woman claims them. I was kind of hoping no one would so I could have them, they were pretty. Now I'm putting piles of papers and things in boxes and going to take them home and sort them. Rochelle is seated on a couch and a woman in a wheelchair comes to the door. I am standing between them. They are role-playing talking to each other on a phone and I am coaching them. I teasingly say to the one behind the half-open door, "Now remember, you're calling your girlfriend." I feel good about being so open and friendly about her lesbianism. After they exchange a few sentences, the role play is over and Rochelle is blushing and has bright red lipstick on. She says that is hard. I agree and say, "Communication is an art form; it is hard," and encourage her to continue trying. I go on packing. I step outside and see buses arriving. Big bands are arriving for a musical evening which I'm not staying for because it will be too crowded and uncomfortable. I see a marimba band bus and think, "Maybe I will stay, after all some really good music will be here," but still I know I won't stay. A couple of the musicians call out to me for directions to the play they will play, and I ignore them, shy and not wanting to connect with them, although there is a part of me that is like a fan and wants to connect. I am sort of regretting doing this even as I continue doing it. I go back inside and think, "Maybe I'll stay." I go out to the backyard where it will be held and try to imagine it full of 2,000 people. I would have to go into the woods and pee because I'd never get through all those people to get back inside, especially in my wheelchair. I then drive my chair down a wooded path where no one is, using a small flashlight attached to my wheelchair and squat and pee. I am wearing my swirly multi-colored skirt of Uni house days. I return and go inside. No, I won't stay. I gather up some boxes, I see a t-shirt, black with a picture of me as a cheerleader in my French beret hat. I see an old wrinkled red head resident hat of Uni house, etc. I go ask a couple of young men to help me carry these boxes out. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am laying on the ground sort of on a picnic blanket with my sister Lydia. A good-looking man wanders by and is attracted and I am attracted to him. We start to walk along, me in a manual chair. He helps push me around. He wants to go off together with me to a motel and vacation with me. I am tempted because he's a sweet kisser and I enjoy his company and I enjoy being with someone. But if I do, it would mean that I'd have to be in my manual chair, which means he'd have to always help me. I'd lose my power, my freedom and independence. I am torn. I agree to do it. Meanwhile we have some money that really belongs to the Mafia and he suggests we just go spend it, at a $100-a-night hotel. I am unsure, this would lead to big trouble, but I follow him and do it, putting off thinking of the consequences. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | My mother has a heating pad and is placing it on me as I am laying down and I say, "No, it goes this way." She says, "No, it doesn't." I say, "Mom, do it my way because it's the way I want it." She resists and I feel angry. I insist. [BL] | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Merc and I are going in the direction of a huge wall of water. I look up and realize this is a tidal wave and it makes no sense to be moving toward it. We turn and run as fast as we can for high ground. I climb and climb until I am up on a roof area and see that I am just barely high enough. To my left now is a huge raging river of water. It's close, but I am safe. | female | 1960-1997 |