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b | Barb Sanders | I am in some kind of hospital or nursing home. A woman dies during the night. Some of us feel sorry for her because she died alone, no friends or family. So we bury her (in her urn) with a jar of M & M's for company. The next morning some people found out and are very upset with us, thinking we were just playing a crude prank. I am explaining to a young man why we did it. I begin to cry and he holds me in his arms soothingly. I say, "This will be hard for you to understand because you are young, in your early to mid-twenties, but I am 53 and much closer to the end of the conveyor belt of life than you are and death scares me. You hardly even think of it." He is supportive and sympathetic. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am exhausted. The little girl, like Charla, is finally asleep. I am sitting in a wooden chair next to her. Ellie is holding her hand, trying to help her get to sleep. I nod to Ellie sleepily. She asks me something, and I nod, but I didn't really hear what she said. She leaves. I look up and see a glass cage with a monkey that looks like a cat in it, under water, breathing quite happily and content in the water. A water bottle for animals is in there and it sucks on the straw for the liquid food. I think it's cute and am amazed it can breathe under water. However, we have to be vigilant because when it is night time and it is sleepy, we have to move it to the regular metal cage so it can breathe air, or it will drown during its sleep. That is sort of Ellie's job. Now I am asleep and Ellie is trying to wake me up. She shakes me and I struggle to wake up. I mumble something and she says in a most appreciative voice, "Thanks, Mom, for letting me have sex," meaning she had asked my permission to go off with this guy and have sex, only I felt a bit strange, because I hadn't actually heard the request. "Oh, well," I think, "what's the harm?" I nod and go back to sleep. She moves another wooden chair over to put my feet on so I can sleep more comfortably. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | A man and I are traveling together. I have a gig to do at a bar in this motel, restaurant place. We get a free room as part of the pay. We go in to see the room. It is a rundown place, ugly green colors with paint peeling and so on. I open a door and it leads into the bar area where I will be working. The tables are red troughs where plates of spaghetti are sitting, left over from other people. We walk around in a circle which takes us to the front cafe area and then back into the more fancy restaurant area and then back into the motel part. I open another door to find the bedroom. It is more the size of a closet, a single bed and nothing much else in it. The walls are so thin that we hear another man in the bathroom. It is noisy. The man and I laugh. We go into another room, the kitchen. There are many cabinets. I am surprised. I wonder what's in them. I see a whole row of stoves. I turn one on. It's a gas stove and two burners flame on. I try to turn it off and can't get it to completely turn off. The flames go out, but I can hear the hissing of gas. I try harder. The man helps. The knob breaks off. I say, "Oh well, I don't smell gas. It must be all right. Now we look in the cabinets. There are many packets of food things, small cereal boxes and so on. I see a huge honey bear bottle of maple syrup. Well, that's the first thing that seems nice about this place. Then a tiny man (sort of the size of a leprechaun) comes in and tells us, on the sly, that we'd have to pay a quarter for any of this food if we eat it. What a rip. I get down on bended knee and say to the tiny man, "Thank you. You are a kind and sweet person to warn us, even though you could get in trouble because you work here." Even though all the aspects of this trip are lousy, the man and I like each other and find amusement in all the adversity. After all, it's a free room. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Turtles come up on shore, by the motel I am staying at. I don't like the people that are staying here. They are secretive and are behind closed doors. I try to meet them and they slide away. I am walking around looking for someone to connect with and talk to. I see the turtles laying their eggs, that are really little transparent, snail-like things. A bunch of large beetle-like bugs come out and go to the babies and begin to latch onto them. At first I think this is a ritual where a symbiotic thing happens to help the babies. But then I realize the babies are being eaten. I feel sick. I try to walk and everywhere there are slimy, nasty bugs and things and I must step very carefully. I try to put shoes on to protect my feet so I won't feel them. I feel sad for the babies. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Leighanne and I are talking about writing projects. She is working on one and I am popping up with ideas which she uses in her project. I look at her formula way of doing the work. She creates a large board and puts (in this case) pictures she drew of walls because she's writing a book about horse things you can put on walls. As we talk, I say to Leighanne, "We are essentially equals." But I feel hesitant like maybe she's better than me. She kind of smiles. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am an English 101 teacher. I walk into my first class of the day, a noon class. I am walking and fairly good-looking in a knit dress. It is a medium-sized class. I start talking about how this won't be a boring grammar class. We'll do the interesting and beautiful part, literature. One young woman asks me if it's the same hours to take a science class. I explain how it takes more hours for science because it's a lab class. Now the class is over and I need to find a bathroom and go pee before my 1:00 class, only it is 1:00 already. I hurriedly walk down the block, passing up the school building because it may take more time to find the bathroom. I see a man from my class and he says he's going to find a bathroom and goes into an agency. I follow him in and ask for the ladies room. The clerk (male) is a bit upset. This isn't a public bathroom, but I point out my need and he agrees. I open the door to find a meeting going on. I change my mind and walk back down the hall. I see another of my students in a room. This agency works with brain damaged people. I decide I'm too late for my class and must just hold it in and hope for the best. I go to my class to find it overflowing with students. A male teacher had been monitoring them for me. I apologize to them and to him explaining I had to pee and couldn't find an accessible bathroom. They are so hard to find. He leaves and I begin my intro. I say, "I am Barb Sanders." I hear different students talking all at once. I pause and wait. I hear several of them shushing each other. Some are asking me what kind of a name is B. I thank them for the attempt to self-monitor. I explain how I came to be called B. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am on a beach and the children are going to swim in the water. I see big slabs of rock out in the water. I decide to go swimming with them. I go in, fully clothed, including my jacket. I wade around and see a bald baby, its bonnet down on its neck. I play with him, floating him around in the water. I had told the children I wasn't going out deep, because I didn't want to get my jacket wet, but when playing with the baby, I lie down in the water and get soaked. The water is cold. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I'm in some kind of a class and two woman sit on either side of me. One woman says rather haughtily, "We never spend time together except in class." It's kind of a dare. So I say, "OK, let's do it now." We are going for a drive. I am driving. As we approach a hill, I see an asphalt driveway and a long parked car. I begin to go up the dirt road up the hill past the car and then I stop and say, "No, we had trouble doing this the last time. Let's try the short cut." I back up to go over the asphalt pathway. I see a tiny car with odd wheels that flop around in a strange circular motion like it's swimming. It goes past. Then I hesitate and say, "We can't go this way." The woman is talking about her novel and her ex-husband and a platform. I say testily, "I'm tired of hearing about your ex-husband and the platform (sort of a novel she wrote)." She says I should use the asphalt path. I sigh and look again. I think my front wheels will lock under the lip of the entry and will be stopped. But I try again and my wheels pop over the lip and we're off. I feel a little embarrassed. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am making art things. My "dad" comes along and looks at it and says "Hey, that's all I get, a silly necklace around my neck and this?" He's referring to the picture I drew to represent my feelings for him. He's in blue and pink and some kind of neck band thing, holding another picture. I am hurt and say to him, "You are insulting me and my art." I walk away from him, feeling sad. I look again at the picture. I had good reason to draw it this way. I stand by my artistic decisions. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am all dressed up in a lovely gown, waiting for my date to arrive. There are children and Melinda in the room. My young man comes to the door. I am excited and pleased. He is very good-looking and well groomed and dressed. I go to the coat closet to get a coat. I am taking special pains to dress socially acceptable as opposed to my usual bid for comfort before fashion style. I pick a coat and realize it is Melinda's. She s miles her consent at me. I put it on. A scarf goes with it, very 1950's in style. We leave, feeling happy. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | A woman with a manly hairstyle and a thick, muscular body is trying to kill my sister Lydia. The woman wants a box that Lydia has. The contents are valuable. I don't know what it is. There is a conspiracy going on between Lydia's husband and the woman and her husband to get the box and kill Lydia. I try to snatch the box and the woman is coming toward Lydia. I step in between them. The woman laughs and warns me to stay out of it or I will be killed. I say, "I can't let you hurt my sister." I have to try. We struggle. I yell out to a blind woman like Becky to break the windows and unlock the doors. She slowly walks toward the window, being very inept and saying testily she wasn't being inept. I manage to capture the woman, yelling to someone to help me hold onto her. I manage to get her handcuffed. She is a tricky, wily woman. I smash through the glass panes of the door windows and I pull her outdoors and down the country village road. I call out, "Where's the sheriff's office?" No one is helping. The sheriff, a pleasant-looking young man, saunters up and asks what I want. I am desperately holding on to this almost escaping woman and explaining the situation. I realize that while we are talking, her husband is cleaning the broken glass panes I shattered to get out of the house and they are setting me up to look like I am harming them. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am watching a woman being prepared for execution, because after they kill her, it's my turn to be executed. They rest her chin on a pile of white pillows. She is standing. I feel the fear and the cold, clammy certainty of my own upcoming death. There is nothing I can do. It is inevitable | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | First there is a war going on. I wear a helmet and a bullet hits me on the top of my helmet as I am lying down in a crouched position. I pick up the spent bullet for a souvenir. I was lucky and the bullet didn't harm me. Now Jennifer H is very sad. Her girlfriend is going to commit suicide. She will drink poison and die. A woman like Katrina is there. I drink the poison too. I am afraid and yet calm. My death is certain now. It's a weird thought that my life is ending NOW. I lie down. I notice Jennifer sitting on the floor near her girlfriend. The girlfriend is in the last throes, gasping and all bound up like in a cocoon or shroud. She turns her face toward Jennifer to say something to her. Her face is contorted. She changes her mind because it's too exhausting to struggle against the enclosing death. I realize I am nearly at that stage now, my poison worked faster than hers. I suddenly think of my girls and how sad I won't be there to watch them grow up. I ask Katrina for paper and pen to write my last wishes. I think of my girls, then I think of my women's group friends and then I look at some of my writing (on yellow legal pad paper) and say, "Well, some of this was pretty good." It seems so strange that I am about to be nonexistent, inconceivable. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am at some kind of convention. I seem to be always late for breakfast. I hear a speech and then go in to the food area to see if there's any leftovers. I find biscuits and so on and begin to snack. I see a woman and sit beside her. I realize it is Princess Di. She speaks in a very soft voice and the radio is playing very loudly. I say, "Just a minute. I have to turn the radio off. I can't hear you." I see two or three radios. I try to turn them off. Which one is it? Another woman is trying to help me. It doesn't work. Now I am in another room. Kids' books are laid out for us to peruse. A man is talking about gun control and how toys and games are inspected for safety features more than guns are. It's a lecture. It's a loud radio newscaster kind of voice. I decide spontaneously to walk for awhile. I start walking up a road, up a hill, and notice I am barefooted. A small girl, maybe 8 or 9 years old, walks with me. I wonder if we can make it barefooted. The gravel spots could be painful. Then I remember I didn't bother to tell anyone where I or the girl was going. They may be worried. Now I'm in a room and a male is telling a sports story about the Raiders. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am seated and a man in a blue patterned flannel shirt comes over and sits next to me. He is sweet and loving and attracted to me. He is gentle. I am attracted to him as well, even though I critically notice that he is slightly pudgy and my age, but still a nice looking man. We sit very close. He puts his arm around me and we are physically very aware of each other. It is very sensual. We like being close together. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I have returned to the community college C. department to work a bit. Jerome comes over and asks me if I would be a "P." I say, "I've been gone so long I don't have any idea how things work now. What does a 'P' do? Do they still do registration and center coverage? And office hours?" He says yes. I want to be conciliatory and obliging, so I agree to be a "P." I notice Jerome's eyes look odd, sort of big with wrinkles around them. He is standing at my desk and I go near his desk. He says to me, "Are you intending to use my desk or yours?" I again am aware of wanting to be obliging and say, "Oh, my desk, of course. It would be silly to change desks since yours is already set up." Then I feel uneasy, wondering if this is a part-time job or a full-time one. I hope it is only part-time. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in a hospital as a patient. I think I am having surgery. A man friend of mine, like Paul of acting class, also has surgery. I suddenly remember it's been days since he went for surgery and I had forgotten to check in on how he did. I start going through the halls of the hospital asking different nurses where I can find out how he's doing and what room he's in now. They are not helpful. I keep trying. I now have to pee and go to a bathroom. I see a woman is in there, so I am by the door waiting. The woman comes out, but another one pops in ahead of me. I am annoyed and say, "Hey. It was my turn. I was waiting here." I see several other women now trying to get ahead of me. One woman left her things on the toilet, a cosmetic bag and so on. Now I am out of my wheelchair and standing so I can muscle my way in if I have to. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am moving from a many-roomed house. There are back rooms I've not even been in. The moving is becoming more and more disorganized. Now people are picking up things and taking them outside, not even in boxes, and sitting them out there. I don't even have the truck thing set up to take things to the new place. I ask someone, maybe my father, to wait and let's get things organized before it starts raining and ruining everything. Now I am supposed to move to the water world of my lover. I put on the bride dress and then Dovre, my daughter, helps me wrap up good so I'll stay warm and dry in the transition, with many layers of black, warm cloth wrapped around my legs and so on, a stocking hat on my head. I come out and my lover sees me, the king of the water world. He is a bit upset to see me so plain and ugly dressed. He discreetly leaves into a building to wait as Dovre helps me unwrap. I am aware that I am supposedly underwater, yet there are bright-colored flowers on the hillside and I can breathe just fine. I get unwrapped down to the bride dress and I call out to my lover that he can come out and greet me. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am trying to walk up some stairs that aren't even finished being built yet. I realize how futile and hard this is, so I go back down and find an "elevator" which is simply a pull chain as I stand on a wooden floor. The mechanism goes down and I see the inner structure of the basement floors go by as I stand there unprotected. I am a bit nervous, wondering if it has a stopping mechanism or if I'll just plow into the floor when I get there. It does have a stopping mechanism and I step off and find myself in a basement, a BIG basement. I am tired and lie down on the floor, with my head resting on a sack of some kind. I see a kitten and then another and then groups of them curled up on shelves and sacks of things. They are all adorable and most are calico. One of them, a half-grown one, sits on my chest and wants to be petted. I pet her, happily. One small baby one nibbles on my ear and I tell it to stop. Now four or five men come in and stop and see me. They are young and muscular and good-looking. One is in a power wheelchair. He smiles at me. They are here to pleasure me sexually. I lie passively where I am and then feel one of them near me. I turn my head and am happy to see he is very beautiful, Mexican, I think, because of his thick black hair and his warm brown eyes. I exclaim, pleased, "You are so very good-looking." He smiles, pleased. His skin is covered with a shiny coconut oil substance. I curl up to him and begin sensually kissing him all over his chest and so on. He begins to expertly wriggle his penis into me. It is very erotic and exciting. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am telling one of my daughters that I had stayed up all night working on linking my dreams. I did all 3,000 of them. I feel exhausted. I say I worked from 7:30 to 12. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am sitting somewhere with a young, good-looking man. I love him deeply and I feel he loves me too. But he is a homeless vagabond and resists the idea of surrender to love. At first he is kissing me and I am resisting. He says, "When did you ever water-ski?" and I say, "Before the arthritis, about 19 years old." He is surprised and very happy. Then I have a chance, he says. By this he means that he still has a chance not only to kindle my love, but to bring me the best ecstasy and sexual pleasure I've ever experienced, because I was so young and inexperienced when I came down with arthritis. Now he and I and a younger boy are walking through a park. I see a grassy area with cement picnic tables and an indoors area with lots of round tables. I decide to sit in the room. I go from table to table, which at first look empty, but as I get there, I'll see a sweater and purse or books. Someone is saving the table. So we go outside. I am standing very close to him. It is exquisite torture for the both of us. I turn my face and kiss him on the cheek. He pulls back sharply, like any little thing will make him cave in emotionally and he'll succumb to the loving feelings. Finally, I get up and say, "Look, I've done all I can. If you want me, you'll come and find me," and I walk away from him, ready to give him up entirely. I have to for my own peace of mind. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I have some author's original manuscript, written by hand. It is a bulky, loose-paged thing in a folder. I try to get into it, but it is so boring. Finally, I start passing up chunks of the book. I tell Ginny that I have to scan the thing just to find out how it ends, once I've started a book. She laughs gently at me. I decide, what the heck, and go straight to the last two pages. I pick up the manuscript and carry it into the next room where Ernie is seated at a table, desk-like thing, which has rainbow colors on it, and there isn't another thing in the room or on the desk. I put it next to him and joke, "Maybe you want to read it." I go into another room where Ginny brings me a two-book set from a bookstore that she thought I'd be interested in, a sci-fi book, maybe Ursula Le Guin. I open it up and the words sparkle and sort of look like those colorful hologram pictures. They are energetic, colorful, moving pictures only on the words that have that kind of meaning. I like the books and wonder how much they cost. I try to read the cardboard display. Maybe they are $10.20 each. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am at the community college again, wondering if they have part-time jobs for counselors. Andrea says maybe in a few years. I am now walking with Jim (dean of something). He likes me and I am distracted a bit. He is showing me some cute things for sale in the community college store. He tries to interest me in looking at things. I realize this is his way of helping us be closer, so I try. He shows me a small ceramic footprint which, when you open it up, is filled with sand. I see a candlestick, black and slim with ceramic cats on it. It is very cute. I am trying to see the prices. Some of the more ornate ones are two or three hundred dollars. The slim one is maybe $10.00. He wants me to go have a salad and sandwich with him at the cafeteria. I feel kind of interested, but not supercharged. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am seated on a bench on a porch with a man and we are talking. There are other people strolling around, some women being catty about me. Another man sits by me on the swing. Someone is showing a video of a famous celebrity talking about E City. I say "Oh, I love E City. I describe the scene to the man by me. I tell him this is an arts fair (Saturday market). He admires what fun we seem to be having and how progressive. Then a road that leads to the ocean. I am puzzled and say, "We don't have an ocean at E City. Maybe this is someplace else." Now I am going down the road and see the waves. As I round the corner, I see it's a wide river with big boats causing the waves. I say "Oh, this is the big river, the W. In Dover." We go down by the river and I point out the newly built modern bridge. I get upset being so close to the churning water and say, "We have to go back up to the road. I get scared near deep water." I try to crawl up through a grate-covered hole. He is wanting to explore the bridge more and moves his grate so it covers my entrance hole. I say, "Help me please." He then pulls me up by the arm, concerned not to hurt me. I make it up and then say "OK, now we can explore the bridge." | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am a pregnant woman. I am in labor, only it's too soon and will take a long time. One man is supposed to come to the woods where I am alone, or at least I think I am alone, but the dream insists on adding lots of other people, and I wave my hands at them to make them go away, but they don't. I am annoyed. I want to be isolated and this one man is connected with me. But the dream simply has lots of people hanging out in the same woods. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in a writing class. It is the end of the term and I am packing my stuff away, but wondering if I should keep some of my things there for next term; only will we use the same room? But it's a lot of stuff to carry away. I decide to take it and I go to my new home, which is an isolated spot far from anyone. I have a door and a room, but somehow no walls on the back side of the room. Or if there is a wall, it is miles away with black emptiness there. There is one more room and I look in it, but it belongs to someone else. I look out a window and the barren fields go forever. I move in the two or three jukebox-like machines with neon tube lights all over them. A man I like comes to the door and I invite him in. I show him the place and we look out the window and see a another large window out there with my different arrowheads and artifacts lined up in a row. I point to one and say, "It's the turtle man design," The man I like finds them all strange and kind of laughs at me, but then there are three other men there, bad men. One is a 400-pound Sumo wrestler type and one is the boss, named Larry. Larry tells the wrestler to get me. I fight him off, punching and trying to kick his balls, but I don't try hard enough and he's going to kill me, so I tell him or maybe I told the man I like earlier that I had karate to protect me. I move into an all-out kill-or-be-killed mode and nail him good. I am furious with Larry and tell him I will never write for him again. He had put me in jeopardy. He laughs and then leans up against the window, and at that moment the nuclear whatever that was out there explodes and he is crisped. I remember the startled look on his face as he realized he was about to die. I run to the door jamb and stand there, and supposedly this protects me enough that they all die, but I live. But I don't completely believe it even in the dream because with that massive a nuclear explosion so close, I couldn't survive. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | There is a fair setting up across the street from my house. The Ferris wheel is set up first and will run for two days before the rest of the fair is set up. I go over and meet a man who is sort of an agent or associate of the man who runs the Ferris wheel. He and I talk and it is clear that I write and he does, and he is interested in maybe marketing stuff. I get on the Ferris wheel with Boomer the cat in my arms. We start going up and the cat gets scared and I wonder if this was such a good idea. I notice I'm not scared by the height, which I usually am. Then I turn my body more so I face full front and we keep going up and I get scared too. I hang on to Boomer hard, hoping he won't scratch me badly, and soothe him. We go around and around and then it stops and I get off. The man who runs it is interested in me and the agent comes over to tell me the other man would like to have a date with me after the fair closes. I say, "But how old is he?" The agent says, "30 or so." I say, "Well, does he know I am much older? I'm 53." He smiles and says he knows but it's OK. He lives with his mother, and besides, he likes that I am a writer. We can talk about writing. I hesitate and then say OK. I walk home now to wait, but am very aware of how tired I feel and how I would rather go to bed and sleep than wait up to go out late at night. Now I see a woman who is the mother of a young woman. I say hi and we talk. She is interested in writing too. I tell her she reminds me of a vegetable. She has a green cast to her pudgy face. This does not sit well with her. She is insulted and tells me she doesn't appreciate being compared to a vegetable. I try to explain myself saying it was a compliment and I didn't mean any particular vegetable. I didn't mean a tomato or a potato (I have trouble deciding which pronunciation I should use, like that song "You say tomato, I say tomato"). I list carrot as well, saying I think the carrot is a fine vegetable. But I know inside I am not complimenting her. Her writing is stodgy, no energy, unthinking, like a vegetable. Now I hear a very annoying sound and look over to see her younger daughter flicking her finger tips and nails together over some food thing. The mother is nagging her to stop and doing the same thing. The young woman who is my friend sits between them, quite distressed and powerless at stopping these two from their power plays. I feel sorry for the young woman and want to help. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am standing, holding a sick boy in my arms. He is a cute tow head boy about 6 years old. He is so sleepy that he curls up in a fetal ball position over my arm as I try and hold him around the waist. Then I pull him gently to standing and he is still sleeping, all draped over my arms. Now I feel some wet and gooey substance on my foot and think he's thrown up on me. But when I look, it is some food he had in his hand, like noodles or something, that fell out of his relaxed hand. I think he's sick and maybe has an ear infection. I carry him to a bed and put him down, covering him up with a sleeping bag. He seems quite willing to lay there and sleep. It's good for him and he knows it. Now there is a windstorm and I am in a rowboat or walking across a raised bar across a large body of water. I cross it to the other side to investigate it. The boy is there and people keep shooing him back for his own safety and yet he must go there for his better health. They don't understand that. So we cross back over the bar and some man is saying the winds are increasing. I wonder if the car we are in will be swept off the bar and into the churning water, but that doesn't happen. We get to the other side. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am setting the table which has an under box with dirt in it and a metal top like an old kitchen table I used to have. I have planted seeds in the dirt and I notice the plants are beginning to grow -- beans, corn, and so on. I am very impressed because I realize the plants had to have bored a hole through the metal to be there. I peek under and see that is so. Then the plants aren't plants but little boxes with labels on them to say what herbs or lotions are in them. They grow in groups of two or threes. I set a table setting on one edge and a glass of milk with a straw in it. This will be my place. Some people are helping me move stuff into the area. They hang clothes on a wire or string over the couch by the table, but the dresses are too long so I tell them to hang those across the table edge where my place setting is, knowing that will cover over my place. Now the dresses are dream images being hung up like pictures on paper. A row of people are at each edge of the table, like a square circle. It's a dream group and they are asking me about my dream images. I start to enthusiastically tell them of the fascinating dream where these dog and wolf images were in, but one interrupts me with a story about a dream of mine he remembers with those images in it, only the picture he shows me is the animals on the side of the road, injured or dead. I try to tell him that's the wrong dream, but he won't listen. Then there's another question, and I answer saying proudly that I hope someday to create a dream center here, and they interrupt me talking and talking. No one is listening to me at all. I feel frustrated. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am talking to a man who owns a turquoise '55 Chevy that drives like a boat. It's a convertible and when you are in the driver's side, it has a rectangular piece with a forward and a backward gear lever. I start to drive it and catch on very quickly how to drive it. I go fast and laugh, thinking maybe the man is worried I might not be able to handle it. It is fun. Now I am inside some man's house. The car man is with me. I like him, but he isn't paying any attention to me. I hear a lot of noise and go to the back of the house. I see a stable outside and peek in. Three nuns are screaming and crying and very concerned. One of them yells one of them is having one. This means one of several different animals is giving birth now. I go back into the house, the man with me, and it's a party and I want him to dance with me and kiss me. But suddenly a huge elephant rampages through and we have to move quickly to get out of the way. We jump to the wall and squeeze between the wall and the refrigerator. We are face to face and I turn my face up, hoping he will finally kiss me. He starts getting the idea and tentatively and shyly starts to kiss me. I am very happy. Now the nuns are screaming it's the other animal giving birth. We go to the door and look. I wonder if the nun's are OK there or if we need to rescue them. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am firing Angel. I am on a campus, like the community college. I see some women teachers I know and stop to chat. Dovre is there. She tells me she and Paulina had invested in some children's gold, children's jewelry that is made of gold. She says they lost money. It was at 6 and now it's at 3. I say, "Don't worry. Keep it; it will raise back up in value." She keeps it in a safety deposit box in a back room. Now she and I are walking and see a booth with Archie running it. He is demonstrating Contact Improv in a small, square pool of water. He smiles at me and at Dovre. I introduce her as my daughter. He invites her to join him and he'll teach her. I laugh and say, "She won't do it." I think she will be shy and say no. She dives right in and swims underwater like a dolphin. I am surprised, pleasantly so, and say, "Ok, I love being wrong." Now Mr. Spock is there. He is wearing weird glasses that don't have a nose bridge and is two long rectangular cardboard flaps with designs on them. He and Archie are friends and Spock is excited about a class he's going to teach. He's been researching and preparing for some time. He says to Archie, "I haven't felt this good since 10 years after the wake," meaning someone he loved died and he has been miserable since. I am attracted to him and would like to have a relationship. He says, "Maybe you could help me teach the class, take a few sessions." I say, "I'd like that. I can do communication skills and my disability stuff." He says, "Then we could later co-teach it." I liked that a lot. I remember I could teach about dreams. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in bed with Howard. He is lying on my left arm, which is under him. He is holding my left hand cupped in his hands very gently. He is talking to himself softly. He is looking at the many, many rows of scars from shots and blood tests. He is sorry for the pain I must endure. I feel his soft skin and like being near him. I wonder if we could forget all the pain of the past and just start over. I feel tenderness for him. He moves and the moment is over. I do not try to bring it back. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Howard and I are moving furniture in a tiny house of mine. We are trying to make it safer and better for the babies, a baby girl and a 2-year-old boy. We put the baby girl's bedroom near us. I feel happy that Howard is there and we are working on the house. It feels right. Later a Ricardo type boy (man) is playing ice hockey. He makes some very extraordinary moves that are complicated. I am impressed. Now there is a tiny, little, furry kitten-like animal with black and white spots that was just born a few minutes ago. I wonder if I'm the mother and Howard is the father, but I realize it is an orphan. We adopt it. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Burt Lancaster and I are talking in a room. I am asking him about some of his movies. I ask him if a particular movie, "The Stone Commander," had a script or if they ad-libbed the thing. I think they ad-libbed. He says, "No, it had a script, in fact, it had two." I am surprised. Now I am counting rows of broccoli: 10 heads to a row and 10 rows. The woman who owns the broccoli asks what I'm doing. I say, "We need these for a movie about vegetables." She say, "Oh no, this is my favorite broccoli. It's so sweet." [BL] | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am preparing to do a performance at a meeting. The woman boss is talking and I realize I don't have my scripts with me for the play. I start looking around the office. I make a mess with all the papers I look through. As I am frantically searching, I also notice that the audience is off in another part of the room, partitioned off. If we moved ourselves into their room, we would be seen better. I check and see that there is plenty of room beyond the office partition. I wonder why we were told to do it in the office in the first place. I am worried that I can't remember the words or the sequence of things we are supposed to do. I am unhappy, and frantic. [BL] | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am late to a lecture. The audience is seated along one edge of the long l-shaped room. Several tables are in the center of the area. I go to the center one and stand there with another woman. A man, a mayor, is giving his State of the City Address. He wears cowboy boots and a big cowboy hat. As he talks passionately about the history of E City, he walks around. Sometimes he is walking around a tiny ledge up on the wall. Another time he straightens up a photo of himself which had slipped down in its frame. He later walks on a balcony and then jumps down. Later, he walks around the l-shaped room's corner to be visible to the stretched-out, oddly-spaced audience. I change my hat and handbag. Two skinny older women in silly odd-shaped cowgirl hats pop out from the back stage area to sing a song, but they are too early. They sing one note and stop suddenly, embarrassed. I like the mayor and what he is saying. I remember some of the things he was talking about and marvel at how many years ago it was that this building or park was started. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am working hard on the DreamWeaver database. I show someone that I have just checked off page 1 of 500 pages. I have a lot of work to do yet. I am impressed with the bigness of the project. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am lying on a bed. I consider myself an old lady, very old, but I am only my own age (53). I am dying. The bed begins to rise up into the air. I float along, rising higher and higher as well as going forward out the door and down the street. I pass the interior of a hospital, and a baby who is dying joins me. I hold the baby and talk soothingly to it. We rise up toward heaven. I am relieved. I was wondering which way I'd end up going. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am walking down a sidewalk and it is raining very hard. I have a black umbrella and I am enjoying this walk, even though I am dripping wet. An older woman walks with me for a while but she gives up and turns to return to her car or someplace dry. I keep on, loving the rain. Now I am walking in a lovely Swiss Alps country. I stop on the sidewalk and look around at the incredible beauty all around me: mountains, yellow Swiss houses, autumn-colored leaves on the many trees. I am in a small village. A good-looking man is in a red car in a parking lot nearby. He watches me and is entranced by my innocent appreciation of the beauty around me. I begin to walk up a very steep hillside sidewalk and he gets out of the car and follows me. It is hard to walk up this steep walkway, but I am enjoying the vigorous challenge. At the top is a huge tree, where you will not get wet. I go under the tree. The man strikes up a conversation with me and I like talking to him, but I don't really give him my full attention because everything around me is so interesting. The leaves of this tree are so thick, they make a wall. He shows me by taking my hand and rubbing it against the leaves. I am amazed. He watches me, liking the reactions I have, but wanting me to notice him. I look out a window, which is really an open square in the leaves. This tree is huge and really creates a long house. We walk on, the tree now a series of hallways with small rooms. It is a museum-like place. I peek in one room, a tiny one with a woman in it. She is conducting an experiment with magnetics or something. I am curious and go in. She tells me to lean my front against the wall. I do and the man is very close behind me. Other people come in and we are very crowded, so the man is right up against my back, pressing me into this odd feeling magnetic wall. It feels good. We go on. He asks me to join him at the Village Fair. I now realize he is interested in me and is courting me. I don't completely trust him, but we spend the afternoon at the Fair, laughing, talking, and walking around. I am attracted to him. Now it is evening. I return to where I had come from, some house or hotel. My man and another one I knew before are talking. I gather from the conversation that it was some kind of competition. The other man had dated me, so this one wanted to try and get me from him. I am deeply hurt and run from the building. The man who likes me runs after me. I run down steep hillsides, dashing around trees and I go for miles. He is in hot pursuit. I wade in a lake to cover my tracks and then swim. I am out of breath and exhausted, but keep on. I arrive at the other end of the lake and climb up a rope ladder to a second story window of my papa's house, calling out "Papa." I feel the man now climbing the rope ladder too. I desperately cry out, "NO!" and try to shake him off. He is determined to catch me to explain how I had misinterpreted the conversation. He truly does love me. I fall into my "mother's" arms gasping, "Don't let him catch me." The man gasps out, "" We had covered miles and I had kept the lead the whole way. I'd pushed myself beyond my capabilities. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Howard and I are at a beach. A high hill across the inlet has some people on it. They are throwing toy boats or planes around. One lands in the shallow water near me. I wade in and am surprised the water is so warm. Howard and I go for a wade, only it turns out not to be the ocean but a parking lot. As we walk, I tenderly touch the white shirt he is wearing. I touch the arm as a gentle way to be connected or close. It feels very nice. Now I have to go pee. We go into a public bathroom. I am surprised we are both in the same one. He says it's ok. I go to the other side of the room, still concerned about the mixed sexes in one bathroom. I pee, but the toilet is loose and wiggles around. I notice it is a galvanized metal tub I am peeing into. I wonder who will have to clean up that mess. Charla joins us and we go on with the walk. We are in a church. Howard says he'd like to go there some day. I ask what kind of church it is, and he says "scholarship" or something academic. Now we are walking down a street and some drunk and disorderly people are driving in a dangerous way toward us. Howard had been drinking beer and he started getting belligerent back at them. I walk away, deliberately calling him Jared, which upsets him, as I knew it would. He resented being compared with his father. He leans up to me and says, "I'm not the only one who has faults." I sigh and agree. "I know," I say. "I have them too." Now we are seeing a counselor. We begin to talk, to try and work out our differences. I say, "But it isn't only that. There are so many things we'd have to change." It is too much. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | We are having a serious meeting about the wording of some document. It's like the C. Department people but it isn't. I go to sleep in the middle of it, because it is so boring. They want me to agree with what they wrote, but I don't want to comment because I feel it doesn't say anything of substance. Now the meeting breaks up and a man is teasing me. We are joking and he is surprised I am fun to be around. I show them another meeting room I had prepared. They ask if there is enough room for 20 people. I say, "The room capacity is 135, I would think there would be enough room." Now I am looking at pictures in a magazine of a M City-like region with a old "Gabby Hayes" kind of man in the picture. Now I am harmonizing with some man a song that goes like this, "Whoa. The sun comes up in the morning." The harmonizing sounds very good. They are impressed. [BL] | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am trying to become a doctor. The test is to take a bunch of letters and spell out your life experiences. I take the letters out of a box, but they are made of a sort of oatmeal-type material and easily breaks and balls up. I am also running out of letters. I am upset. I go to the teacher doctor at the front desk and breathlessly explain my situation. I so much want to perform well so I can pass the test. He watches me with interest to see how I will handle this challenge. I see some plastic letters in a sheet. I find a blue sheet of them and a teal blue one. I now have better materials and rush to continue my work. I am now making a tiny tortilla and putting refried beans on it. I fold the tortilla and put a part of an olive on it and a scrap of lettuce. I then plop a bottle of Mexican beer by the place setting, in the manner of a person who doesn't appreciate the wife role. I feel some resentment. I then put a bottle of rose-colored wine cooler next to it, for me, and then move it to the far end of the table. I try to find a pretty china dish, but none are left and I look for any plate. Now I am done and go to the teacher doctor. He smiles at the intensity I feel and the anxiety for how I did. He says, "Call upstairs and see if they graded you yet." I search for a telephone. Then I ask for the extension number, then I can't find a quarter. Then it's the wrong phone. A bemused clerk at the drugstore I'm in comes over and shows me the pay phone. It is high up on the wall. I try to put the quarter in the right slot, as there are two. I accidentally try to put in a round glass piece. I see my mistake and put in a quarter. I finally reach them upstairs and they say, "The results are in, come on up to get them." I am near tears. I race to the stairs, at first crossing an odd board on the floor that tilts to slide you on down the hall, but I am on the wrong floor. I retrace my steps and find the circular stairway. I step on the first stair, which has an odd accordion expanding set of stairs that work a bit like an escalator, except I step up each step and it carries me to the next step. My borrowed white lab coat gets caught for a moment in the device. I pull it free. The clerk already knows I passed because I had been so thorough and conscientious. I am filled with dread and anticipation. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in an audience, waiting for the reception to begin. The huge cake with chocolate and white frosting on it is at the front of the room. I am seated in the front row at the far right. I notice that the cake has far too much frosting on it and is dropping as the chocolate globs drift down the sides. I want to help, so I go and scrape off the globs of frosting and try to frost the cake again. I take huge quantities of frosting off and put it on a cardboard. Then I look again and notice that I have really made a mess of this cake. There apparently hadn't been too much and I had put chocolate where the white was and so on. I feel embarrassed and I feel badly for Andrea who made the cake. She comes in and I feel compelled to apologize and explain my actions to her. She looks at me and then at the cake and is appalled. She turns and leaves the room. Her cake is ruined and she feels angry and miserable. I feel bad I accidentally made the mess, but I am also aware of a sense of revenge or satisfaction, which I try to minimize or deny. I see my mother seated at the front of the room. Another woman, younger, comes and sits next to her, rather close. My mother shifts her position to create more distance and then to my surprise she puts her arm along the back of the chair the other woman is seated in. She is careful to keep her distance and not actually make physical contact with the woman. I also notice that there are many square parts of the cake all along the front of the room in piles. It was a pretty big cake and tastes just fine. Nobody else seemed upset that the frosting wasn't perfect. | female | 1960-1997 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I go into small "shotgun house" a sharecropper house--Three rooms in straight row. A black woman is sexy with print dress and no underwear, and big breasts show thru strained buttons in front. I want to touch them, and suddenly I see her baby who is sucking his thumb and first he gets a little erection and then little erections come out all over his body. Amazing. As I look at the dozens of little penises, her husband comes in with a shotgun from hunting. I say hello and leave. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I'm on a safari in Africa, and a friend is hunting with me, Gene, who grew up in India with Southern Baptist missionaries. He shoots a white cat high in an acacia or eucalyptus tree and it falls to ground and hobbles to a green compound and through a rotting board goes inside. I follow and see that it was Gandhi's home when he was in South Africa (c. 1890-1913). I go thru like the cat, but the cat has become my girlfriend in Japan when I was in the army, 1946-1948. She is beautiful in a kimono and has a red spot on her forehead like an Indian woman. I reach out to touch her and she's a pony who runs in a spiral--or gyre--and is rainbow-radiant in sunlight like velvet. She--the pony--comes to rest at my feet. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I'm dead and in my coffin and Guru with one eye comes to me and says, "You can live forever as long as you don't take sides." It is warm and moist as I rot in my coffin, but I decide to live again anyway. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I'm in a religious parade in Peru and am hungry and thirsty, and see dried tomatoes nearby and each has a speck of moisture. Parade goes by an abandoned city like "Macchu-Piccu" with buildings--pyramid and sphere and rectangle. I leave the parade and go into last big square. It is dark and dust is 3 feet deep. I walk slowly and go past an empty throne and see golden glow at far end. It is magic-scientists who wear white jackets like TV MD's and they turn pennies into gold on lathes. I go back to a queen on the throne and she says to me, "Rescue the royal crowns." She hits a lever by her throne and a cube of water rises in air like green jello and below the quivering water in the air is a rectangle hole about 8' deep. I must obey the queen, so I jump in and as I touch the gold and silver crowns, the water descends over me and I know I have died again. I took sides as the Guru warned, and I had only 24 more hours of life when I was promised immortality. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I pick up a Life magazine from about 1954 and it has picture of William Cowper Brann, a "man hated when alive because he was an iconoclast, but now honored in his home town, his home a memorial." Suddenly, I was in Arizona near Frank Lloyd Wright's "Talisen West" and in the desert I see a white mother cat with four little white cats following her. She goes up hill to a big house and I enter and it is home of Brann himself, and he is surrounded by four boys, his students. On the mantle are several volumes he and the boys have written, "Flora and Fauna of the Arizona Desert." I look at one of them and I open it and Brann comes up and stands by me and touches my penis thru my clothes, and I wonder if he's a homosexual. And I wonder how far I should let him go, so I can read his amazing and useful books. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I had a text with camel on cover and Arab-looking man standing beside it with brown belt of bullets and rifle and pistol ... in desert place beside rock and scraggly tree (-- palm, oak?). I looked at picture and suddenly was on the road and came to this place and talked to the man in it. I had the book with me and picture then was faded and sepia-reddish like. I asked if he were as cruel as he looked, and he laughed. "Pistol & rifle used for target practice & shooting at rocks. A posed picture for western (American) tourists!" and I also laughed. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was on top of a tower or building with a young man. I see crows flying overhead. I turn up my lips and pretend to kiss them. They start to circle and come in close. I see they are carrion crows--dirty, smelly beaks. I fear they will kiss me. A big one--like a large eagle or condor--comes close and I see a young woman in its talons. I pull & she is in my arms--young, about 16, pixie haircut, thin cotton dress--no underwear, small breasts (like Audrey Hepburn or Julie Harris). She kisses me and I am pleased. We eagerly kiss many times. We go down the hill or mountain to a house where she lives. I realize it is a whore house where she is held captive. I'm immediately bothered about the kisses since she may be infected from that house. I see the gangsters in the house and I wonder if I should endanger my life to protect her. She stands close to me, certain I can save her. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was in a large library and among ancient liver-spotted volumes. A tall, handsome scholar picked up and put down the heavy volumes. I knew him to be dying of a bad heart, the time unknown. He resembled both me and Robert Graves. He then picked up a hammer and pounded on a desk or table. At each blow, I would not have been surprised if he had dropped dead. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was at the railroad in an unknown yard (but like a rail cut through a hill where I played when 10-12 years old). I was working third trick--midnight to 7 AM. The switchmen cut off and went home with a drag out of the industries on the tracks sloping down into a valley below, around a curve and out of sight. A poet I teach with said the switchmen left no hand brakes on it, so he had put enough on them to hold them from rolling. He then disappeared. I wanted to jump through the cars and look at an industry on the other side. Just as I touched a flat car of lumber and poles, the drag started rolling slowly. I decided to wait for an easy handbrake to come by and crawl up on the car and turn it to stop them. But the cars had separated and only three passed me. The rest stayed. I watched them go. They went onto a siding just before the valley and hit a wire fence--like home plate in baseball. The strong wire stopped them like a mitt. The tank car turned into a steam engine as it fell on its side. They were like toys from where I stood. I wondered if I should go home or go to the office. I decided to go to the office and to act as if I knew nothing. On my way I saw others derailed the switchmen had left when they went home. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was at railroad museum surrounded with old engines, rails, cables, and small replicas of stations and roundhouses. In one corner was a well, with rope and bucket above, but with no wall or curbing around it. My first wife, Betsy, was yelling at me, mixed with silence and surly anger and great hostility. While her back was turned to me, I gave her a great shove and sent her 15 yards head first down into the well. I was quiet, pleased, and surrounded by a crystal silence for a few minutes with her absent from sight. Then I thought she may be dead and I accused of murder. So I went to the edge and looked over into the darkness. Near the big bucket floating on the surface I saw the outline of her body, clothed, and by looking under the shadow of the bucket, I saw her face, and it had a slight smile and I saw she was alive. I talked to her and said I would lift her up and she looked and said nothing, but looked pleasant. I then tried pulling on the rope, hoping she would catch hold of the bucket. But she did not try. I then told her I would lower a second rope which she could put under her arms, and I and others would pull her out. It was then morning (as if a whole night had gone by) and museum employees were returning. Also, it was like a machine shop and real roundhouse with men nearby with overalls and greasy hands. I was afraid they would look down the well and I would be under suspicion. I looked quietly for more rope and found some. When I went to the edge of the well, Emma was starting up a rope ladder (used on landing craft and helicopters) and she was beautiful, like Botticelli's Birth of Venus, completely naked, with full breasts and ample white-skinned stomach, and smiling, quietly and restrainedly, as in the Botticelli pictures--Venus and Primavera--with wet hair not too shiny and sleek. Near to the time of touching her hand as she ascended, the dream ended. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was in Europe at Virgin Mary Shrine. I went each day and stared into the face of Mary, who was young and fresh-looking as Michelangelo's Pieta, but was holding infant here, not Christ from Cross). One day she looked at me, warmly. Next time she left and came in the shadow where I stood and kissed me on the mouth (she looked like a student of mine four years ago who is young and virginal, and has reputation of resisting all sexual advances) and walked--almost drifted--back into the white statue. The statue never left during this trip to kiss me. The shrine was high up on top of building with long and straight stairs up, all white stone or painted wood--brilliant white--even roof and rafters or open beams, gothic peaks and pedestal except where long lines of tourist's feet had worn paint off and exposed brown wood below. During the kiss, the tourists in the line did not see her, but she seemed nervous and seemed to say--or said--"Don't let them see us or they will kill both of us." Next "day," another sort of non-sexy kiss that "took my breath away." | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was in a medical school or maternity ward. Doctor and students grouped around a pregnant woman--or specialists with other doctors--she had big bulging belly but no pudenda. He was curious as to how she conceived--through anus was some of speculation. He split it and out came baby. The area was hairless and smooth as any skin. Afterwards--a lapse of days?--the woman was sexy and asked me to rub the newly made pudenda, especially the clitoris that was revealed or discovered or uncovered for first time. Some joy of sharing that first experience, but not complete ecstasy since a lingering memory of operation in that area, though operation and birth not ugly or bloody. (The language of the doctors was quite scientific, some big words I don't remember.) | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was at exclusive resort of rich, elegantly-dressed, healthy, handsome people. It was near the sea, I think, but its hedges and cut-grass lawns extended inland for about 5 blocks. It was like a labyrinth. I walked to the far side and found no fence or solid hedge; it was open to ordinary city-dwellers and farms. At this far side was an asylum for the insane. They were mostly very ugly with blank white and pink faces and Mongoloid features--like sharpness of eyes, nose, and cheekbones rubbed out with artgum, like a paperwad or chewed gum--featureless and stupid. But not all. At this far side, normal rich people and insane mingled together in the labyrinthine lawns between 8-foot hedges. I couldn't tell smart from stupid in all cases. But most intelligent and most healthy were obvious and most stupid were obvious. I felt I was among obviously handsome and intelligent ones. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was at a retreat in a country house with people from the college. About ten couples. About half left (on a bus?) for short day-long excursion. After they left, I discovered I was only man with five women, wives of men who left on excursion. Emma was not present, I assumed, and I felt free, but a bit peculiar, hoping I wouldn't do anything silly or effeminate. One woman appealed to me; she was tall with black hair. At a later time, I was standing behind her as she sat on a chair. I think she was naked and the other women were sitting in front of her on the floor. I reached around and stroked her. Suddenly Emma was there among them, but she, like the rest, acted as immobile as students at a lecture. The bus returned and we got ready to go. As the women stood up, I discovered one was a man, a small man about 55, with brown and grey hair. He revealed that he was the new curator at the college. When he found out I had been here several years, he asked lots of questions--their budget, his budget, attendance. I was surprised he knew so little. His attitude about his job seemed to be the same as his attitude about me feeling his wife--just impassive resignation that to be cheated right in front of his face was routine. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | Last night I dreamed I was with my brother in Spain, a sort of semi-desert place. He introduced me to an old man who looked like Walter Brennan. He had come to Spain thirty years earlier and had translated a Spanish poet he loved and printed at his own expense 5000 copies. None sold. Since this poet praised cheese, he went into cheese-making business, making a golden-yellow cheese which he gave with each volume that a person bought. He sold about 1000. But that was many years ago and he was almost bankrupt. It seems that the taste for yellow cheese died. So he made a Swiss-colored cheese, a whitish-yellow. And the room we were in had stacks of books against one wall and stacks of cheese--covered with salt crystals--against another. My brother wanted to help the desperate old man so he had printed in Spain a sheet telling the story of the poems and cheese and an address for American distribution for one dollar each, but no cheese since US government would not let his cheese in. I was back in USA writing a check for $2.00 for two copies when the dream ended. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I dreamed a cat irritated me, so I decided to put it outside, even though the winter was cold. As I took it by the neck and opened the door, the cat turned and bit me on the finger and sunk all its claws into my hand. I put the cat on the floor and killed it with a ball-pen hammer. I looked down and there was blood on my rubber boots that I was tracking over the linoleum, which I quickly wiped up with paper towels, thinking of what lie I would tell the children if they walked in. I put cat in white wax paper sack and ground was frozen, so I found soft, dry dirt and I dug a "cathole" with my bare hands under the edge of a raised garage. The next day, that garage was torn down and a new one of cement blocks was in its place. On the wall 5 feet above ground was my briefcase and in it was the white sack with white cat inside. Children and I were out walking and looking at fall leaves, and as they looked at bright leaves, I dropped it in a post office box. As it hit the bottom with a thud, I wondered if the sack may have had my address on it, and worried about another return. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was in my hometown in the back yard of a house I lived in when I was 10-12 years old. But it started on the college campus where my father attended--rolling lawns like open country. We were chasing a horse that was loose. We chased it into the back yard under a big pecan tree. People showed up, some I knew, others like gypsies in painted caravans and old cars. They started building a fence from scrap lumber--new and yellow-gold, but not matching. It grew like a Spanish fan or peacock tail. "It is movable so the horse can get new grass within the fence each day." The ground so lumpy like old furrows covered with new grass. Suddenly I was in a house sitting on the floor, and a young woman in white blouse and tight jeans sat beside me. I put my hands on her hips. She moved and another took her place. She had red hair and freckles and was about 20. I quietly admired her clothes, hair and skin. And she quietly lifted her sweatshirt-sweater and rubbed her lovely freckled breasts. She rubbed the nipple between her finger and thumb. In the dream I assumed it was modesty, covering the nipple. But it was also sexy stimulation--both opposites joined. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | (May 30, 1977)"Armageddon" didn't appear in the dream, but it was. USSR troops, and the troops of Israel, USA, and Arabia on four sides of a desert area, with a looming mountain beyond. I was in a tin shack in the middle with bullets everywhere. A man I know who has a bookstore said he would go outside and declare us neutral territory and that would save us. "Stupid," I said. Then he ran off with a bag of white sand making a circle to save us. A young woman in a dress stood beside me--I had met her two nights earlier at a party--German and Armenian mixture--and she said we could get away at night. "We won't live that long." Now or never. As we debated, an anti-tank gun just in front of us started shooting at a tank going up the mountain. The tank drivers were perfect, with a zigzag and the gunners almost as good, trying to hit the tread and hitting just above it. Up and down four times and still going up when the dream ended. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was at the library doing research on Ezra Pound. Later on I was sitting on the curb or by the street on an easy chair. A friend came by with a recently discovered book manuscript of Pound in Pound's handwriting. He showed the first page--title had a Pound touch like "The Lyric Bottom of the River Boater's Moonlight Wife." He flipped through to show the tacky re-writings and scribbles in the margins and pasted paper as he cut out and rearranged the order. My friend said, "Pound is a magnificent poet and this early work shows it." I didn't see it, but felt I must not be critical since my friend is a poet and critic, and I am so weak as poet and critic. My friend didn't seem to notice me, but he was lonely for someone to talk to and I seemed the best person under the circumstances to share his zeal for Pound. The last page of the book had the word ELLIPSE done by Pound. I studied it a moment and said, "Like Blake," but he didn't respond very much--just nodded. It was to me Blake's swirls of angels, spiral nebulae, man-in-moon, and fetus curled up. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was in my hometown just opposite the college. I had the job of picking up trash in small van and driving over mountain path. Woman and two daughters to go with me--sex hinted at in dream at least in "infatuated air" of my brain. She didn't show up and I didn't want to go with two daughters alone. So I took off fast and headed for mountain path, afraid vehicle would turn over or hit a tree or big rock. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was on the farm and a civil war or feud was taking place. A man named O'Neill, tall and thin with black hair, said he had a treasure at bottom of muddy swampy lake in our horse and mule place below our barn. "I'll kill anyone who comes close." He dives in and comes up; assumption is that it's there, perhaps in a chest. I go around to come in at back, some bullets still flying around me. I get to back side of large pen behind the barn and climb a hill-cliff to be above him. At top I'm not at our farm; I'm in suburbia like house, oak trees and edges of lawns. I throw rocks at sea creatures or rocks of same shape, like stinging rays and squid; one shaped like this seems to move from my rock or alive... Dogs come out and I throw at them; my brother comes out and I almost hit him. Dream stops. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I am on the farm and a horrible blowing storm is on the way. I'm on back porch and see laundry. I go out and quickly take it in; a pastor is on the porch and he says, "I hope my grandmother doesn't see you... there is a Finnish way of wrapping and bringing in laundry that is better" and you're just wadding it--implied. In the house with laundry, I saw Emma run out front door, even though storm is coming closer. She runs to a donkey and starts trying to tie its tail in a knot. A man sees her and gives her a long finger-wagging lecture on cruelty, etc. I go out (storm no longer exists in the dream) and see the donkey is part of circus--at least one long elephant, like two men inside cloth elephant; it is twice as long as real elephant--gingham and calico; another creature had run in front of me like cloth armadillo ... real or people inside? Donkey was real, then I see house large and brown-sepia Stratford, like our Chalet with a sign on front said "Made by a Blind Man." The name is vague; first lost completely. End of dream was looking at house and wondering where it was going--pulled by donkey and elephant, or are they just to attract a crowd? | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was at the college looking at the Greek and Roman statues of warriors. There seemed to be about six of them, white marble, life size or a bit larger, all complete from sword and shield to high helmet. About a dozen people like me walked among them. Suddenly, the statues got off their pedestals and walked about, ignoring us but sword-fighting with each other--half playful, half serious like fencers. Three of them went to the rear of a statue of General Grant--or some Civil War general, in real clothes. They rammed their swords in to emasculate him, he crumbled like a statue and fell like a man. I saw it from both sides, looking down the thin wall dividing a room, the general in an open alcove to be viewed from both sides. Then they started in my direction. I wondered why, since no mortals had been attacked. I looked down and I was naked white marble. I escaped their swords by rising to the ceiling--no wings, but Will--and I felt my shoulders nestling against it like a balloon. Then I descended also by merely wishing to. I was thrilled by this. In the dream I asked if I was dreaming. I knelt on the parquet floor and felt my knees on it. I felt the floor and went through several proofs that I wasn't dreaming. I wondered why people around me didn't notice and praise me. Suddenly, a call for all statues to go into an auditorium. I felt something dreadful to happen to them. I was not one of them even though I was still white as marble. I rose above them once more. I felt my ability weakening, but I still had it when the last one went thru the door and out of sight. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was in NYC and was hungry; I went walking and found a store I liked and ordered two steaks that looked red and tender, lettuce and two carrots. I sat down beside the counter and ordered a meal--restaurant and market combined. The meat on my plate was good--lamb chop in shape. I opened the paper of the two steaks--shaped like T-Bone or large pork chops. All fat-tallow except a little lean on one side, and only in spots there. I call the waiter over and show him. He shrugged. I talked loud--almost yelling--and the man came from behind the meat counter. I said, "This is what I expect from you in NYC." "That's OK," no longer angry. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was in Vietnam firing at Americans on the ground from a tall 3- to 5-story wooden structure--not sure if Americans thought it was American or Vietnam. I hated them because they were rich and cruel. Suddenly, they took off in a helicopter and hovered near my window I had fired out of. I looked into the 'copter and saw about six male faces, stern and cruel, battle clothes, most without helmets. I felt they could fire or napalm me with ease. They hovered and hesitated even longer. Should I toss a hand-grenade in or hide under a bed? Dream stopped. No resolution. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | Mike Kovacs handed me a fat mss: "I was sustained for years in a Communist prison by one sentence from a Mark Harris novel." I didn't remember the sentence, but it was not profound to me. It was so profound and meaningful to MK that he wrote 300 pages of commentary and praise of it; and in giving me the copy, I noticed it was rather faint Xerox, so faint that I was immediately afraid that it could not be Xeroxed again; and I didn't want to part with the "original." I handled the heavy thing, single-spaced and compact and unvarying to the outer edges in style. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was near the University. I was outside three shops: paperback bookstore, music hall, and a German restaurant. The students were grouped on the sidewalk: German-speakers in one group. French in one, and Italians in another. Near the French was a girl without legs that was being ignored. I hardly saw her, only 3-4 feet above the cement. I kneeled down and talked to her, suggesting we go to a bench and sit down. She seemed to be on small rollers although I wasn't sure. She propelled herself with her hands or fists. When we got to the bench, I sat, and she lifted herself smoothly up to be beside me. She was wearing a see-thru blouse and no bra; her breasts were small and neat, with nipples nudging the white lace-like cloth. She had her hair in a tight swirl about her head and her skin was fair and freckled. I started the conversation by saying that "Your arms can do everything better than mine." I placed my bare arm beside hers and hers was the same size as mine but harder. She said something about being lonely and I said, "There is no reason for any woman being lonely as long as all her moving parts worked; and I'll bet yours do." She had a faint smile. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | A woman came to the bed that I was sleeping on but laid on the parquet floor. She lifted her gown and spread her legs: she stroked herself and invited me in--I plunged a few times and just as I came I took out my penis with the semen oozing and shooting onto her stomach--belly button area. I wondered if any went inside, since I didn't know her age or her preparations. I woke up and had had a wet dream--the first in a decade at least. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was with "my" [imaginary] animals. A white goat, muley--no horns--butted me playfully. I could not tell if the goat was tame or wild. It sort of butted me towards a hilltop. As we went to edge of dry stream bed, the slope down one side and up the other was easy to walk, even though the sparkly sand (volcanic ash?) changed to frost and light snow--not slippery at all. It was crisp to walk in the cold air and hear the quiet crispness underfoot. Above me was my pet male deer, Elk, Moose--it had the largest horns I'd ever seen, all branchy like an open fan. I walked closer, my goat just behind me. I took off my black belt and came closer to its pretty grey-brown neck. I put the belt around it and closed it, with some of strap left over like a handle, fearful because the horn hitting me would kill me with just a twitch of the deer's head and neck. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was walking near the city auditorium and church. It is twilight. a police car comes by with large 8 foot by 8 foot board on it with curved edges--like plywood with holes in it, curved as with steam to make it bend into wings. I looked up in the sky and the same piece is sailing upwards where it hovers like a martin, kite, or prehistoric flying monster half a mile up. I assumed it took off when cops came around the corner too fast and an updraft lifted it like a glider. Then it swoops down with a graceful parabolic curve, just clearing my head, and it enters a house ... and I know it is a steel sheet. It goes right through the wall of the house, parallel with porch, through the picture window where I see people playing cards. It travels at table-top level and I assume came to rest beyond the house in an alley. I do not go in, knowing the dead bodies and ugly destruction. I don't want to be a gaping curiosity-seeker. Later I read in a paper where five people killed, when it caught them playing cards in the early evening. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I'm in China in semi-desert place with American travelers. We seem to be a trade or academic delegation. Suddenly about 500 Chinese walk towards us. I'm uncertain, but not very afraid. Then smiles on those in front rows. One comes forward who knows a little English--a man about my age wearing a little blue-denim Chinese worker's cap. I say slowly that I'm a railroad worker, but lost my job when the volcano exploded. They are feeling sorry for me and express regrets--a ripple of ooos and sighs through the crowd when he translates. Then I name slowly the cities that I may go to in order to find another railroad job. I wonder if they see similarities in American union protection and Chinese socialist protection. Suddenly, I'm in a pasture behind where I lived when I went to college (close to the university, but still we kept two cows). The Chinese are with me. I decide to show them my house and garden so they will see an American place. We walk slowly around the house and I talk about the oak trees they have never seen and the flowers that are new to them. When we get to the front of the house the dream ends. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was in desert-like place near a railroad. A ghost-town with old lumber unpainted and worn by blowing sand. One building like a small garage had sunken place in it, rats dived to the bottom like pit of doodlebugs enlarged and squirmed just below the sand. I threw small rocks and gravel to get them up so I could kill them. Suddenly, water rose and a small shower inside the shack--like rain inside the car in the George Burns movie O God. I went outside to see if rats had run away. None. I walked to railroad platform and white rope separating people from station employees had just broken. A friend and boss of mine at railroad repaired it, the way cable is spliced: rope overlapped and U-bolt tightened. I praised him too much I felt; he looked at me oddly for excessive language for small act. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was in the town where I grew up, but my present age, on a screened porch my father slept on. Outside the window, two girls, strangers to me, about 16 years old, played this game: "This is the way my boyfriend kisses me," and one girl kissed the other. "This is the way my boyfriend squeezes my breasts," and the other girl squeezed ... many giggles from both. "This is the way my boyfriend humps me." My father is standing beside the bed, my mother in it suddenly; he is bashful about sex. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | In the dream I see a movie ad on famous users of drugs and how it harmed them. The picture in the ad looked like Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now and like an eroded face of Ken Kesey on cover of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The movie opens with effects of drug distortions as seen in head of man in top of Volcano (half eaten away or ash and burned marks or darkness). His hand rested on the mountain and body soared above it into steam and clouds--I assume headless. The dream shifts to asylum/hospital/prison where man/boy is captured by police/evil futuristic uniforms as in Star Wars. He screams as loud as possible, "Help me, Save me!" Out of the volcano Christ rises and strides forward in the air, with two helpers or angels, also walking through the air toward the prisoner. Christ has on cape and headdress like monks or St. Francis. But his face was strong. The scene shifts to the outside of the prison (or military base or asylum). At the entrance, a man and two young women are tearing down the signs, MENTAL WARD, RETREAT CENTER. I assume they'll tear down the fence. but the dream ends as they tear the signs off the gate. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was in Ireland below the Rock of Cashel. I rested under an oak tree near a ruined monastery in a big cow pasture. I left my day pack under the tree to go to see the old stones. When I returned, two people were under the tree, our librarian and an unknown young woman, glasses and thin. I gathered up my things and left. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | An unknown woman in a bar yells at the bartender because they will not sell her beer on Sunday--and they had in the past. Suddenly the woman changes into Henry Miller who sits down with huge books under his arm. They bring him Miller's beer in a can without him saying a word. He is working immediately in the wide margins, giving "explication du text" to obscure and rarely played Shakespeare plays--Timon of Athens and Titus Andronicus. He works steadily with a black ink pen--script perfect. I'm impressed that his mind is clear at 88-90. He has galley proofs beside the books. I pick up one with circle of beer can on its edge. It is almost beyond belief that so much learning can come from that ancient mind of Henry Miller--and nothing there except the text of Shakespeare. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I am walking the streets near a university and go into a place unmarried professors have apartments. I find the one I want to talk to--an ugly man I know. I walk outside his room and sit at a library table with light in center. He brings mushrooms and a dish of raw vegetables. I feel the meal is skimpy. Then he brings beef after I have eaten the first two courses. It is in gravy and cut like sukiyaki. The door opens and a professor next door comes out. He is also unattractive. I feel both are mediocre in looks and talent. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I'm with Carl Sagan in Japan in a bay where soldiers drowned in coming back from a victory in Korea over Mongolian Ghengis Kahn-Kublai Khan. The oysters had the face of Japanese warriors on them. When the fishermen raised oysters with face of warrior on them, it was like desecrating a graveyard. So each one with shell that resembled a warrior put back. As the years have continued since 1300, the resemblance to warrior has moved closer and closer. Sagan in his TV show said this was Darwinian selection where Men and Nature were together. In my dream, a scientist said volcanoes erupted at same time. So face like cameo of eroding layers of pink, brown, and mauve volcanic dust to give that effect. Most of the scientists in the bay argued against him. He lost. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I'm in the church. The main priests are Black--American Negroes. There are about four of them in the front pews. The four have purple scarves around their necks. When it is over, the leader of the Black Priests says, "We are always in the front here. Lay workers close to priests just behind us. Congregation behind. In the big churches or cathedrals, congregation in front. So we are active..leaders." | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I am in a Paris railroad station; and at the center of a wagon wheel of tracks, like spokes that radiate out from me about 160 degrees. I wonder which of seven trains a woman I know is on. I worry a moment and then know she is on any of seven trains or all seven. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I'm in a "Banana Republic" in South or Central America. I visit the Chief of State ("Caudillo"?). He appears strong and confident. But as we prepare to leave his office and go on a trip, his second in command says he must have a body guard. He tells me he is taking it reluctantly. We go through the streets, I'm beside him in an open car, the guards on the running board. It switches to cab of a big truck and guards lined up on flatbed truck behind cab. Their weapons are pistols (like German Lugers, sawed off shotguns, like Chicago gangsters in old movies and real life) and strange double-barreled things like infra-red rifles used in Vietnam and movie I saw, Outland, for seeing warm bodies in the dark. Suddenly I'm on the curb among those watching. It seems to me that behind every woman watching the President go by is a man with a gun or pistol wanting to shoot the president. I move away and stand by a curb with no one around me. And I count about twenty in the crowd who want to kill the leader. His guards aim at them, but refuse to kill the women they are dodging behind. I wonder why he doesn't resign. I wonder why most don't leave that violent country. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I'm at an old railroad station or museum; the people have just finished a meal and are in a room with wooden benches as at a fine old railroad station with a fireplace. A man comes in that I know to be a poet and teacher. "Let's get this discussion session going," he says. I ask which poet. He says Robert Frost, so I decide to stay since I can discuss without study. Just as we get started, the leader of the Retreat Center comes back with two heavy suitcases and looks tired. My friend Earl is sitting close to me, agitated with several sheets of papers in his hand with columns of figures I can see. Earl says to the old director, "The Retreat has this estimate for tax purposes, and this other one... they are different by 48 cents." I say to Earl in a whisper, "I'll give you the 48 cents so we can get started on the poetry." He ignores me. The director must have heard me since he says to Earl, "Hand them to me." He looks and changes them to the same figure with his pen, sarcastically I think--and justifiably so. Earl is still not satisfied. I say loudly, "I'll donate a dollar to the Retreat Center so we can get to the poetry." I'm angry with him. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I laid off from the railroad as sick. I went to a big art museum. I felt sleepy and laid down on the marble floor. But I looked up and saw I was under a long marble arch, straight like a column on its side and horizontal. It was supported at one end by an urn and a tiny crooked column above it. It looked dangerous. So I moved several yards away. I woke from my sleep as the great 40 yard marble thing started to fall. I just laid there. It landed a foot from my head. I turned and looked at a white marble lion--astounded that its smallest and thinnest parts did not crumble and hit me. I got up to tell someone of my good luck. Suddenly the room was filled with a charity sale, all the garage-sale junk you ever saw there in that room, on tables. People walked around the column on the floor in unconcern. I saw a red-haired guard with freckles who seemed friendly. I walked up to tell of my cleverness that saved my life. He didn't understand English very well, saying he was Ukrainian. And talked mostly in Ukrainian to me, with an English word here and there. So I joined the people looking at the stuff for sale. I looked at Street & Smith pulp westerns, some bound, some loose issues. Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes in volume sets, one in a large bread wrapper, each book like a slice, others in plastic one beside another, as people carry credit cards. Then a generous neighbor woman came up to me and gave me a beautiful "heirloom." It was a glass bowl-vase--between both in height--cut glass, blue glass leaves or painted blue spots here and there. In and around and below the glass dish was silver and gold wire, fine as hair, holding silver and gold leaves. In its bottom was carved in the glass, in red lettering--Sheffeld 1733." I assumed it had belonged to that famous cutlery family or an aristocrat with that name. I took it to the house where I lived while in college. I set it on a desk in my bedroom. The family paid no attention to me or the bowl since my son Willie had returned home. Emma and the three other children asking many questions, hugging him, and touching him. I looked from the doorway and saw that he had his usual quiet smile, saying nothing. His arms were thin as broomsticks, his neck bent forward, giving him a hint of hunchback. His hair fairly short and very black. One pimple at hairline, just under his left ear. His arms did not have marks of drug user. I wondered if he would go for a good physical. I hoped they would not drive him away with too many questions. I'm happy and unhappy he has returned. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I'm in the army and there is a "civil war"--one part of the army fights another. I go into the country. A person between me and the snipers stands up with a mattress to protect him. It is my brother. We escape together. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I'm in an office at the railroad where I worked 1941-1946. In my pajamas. I leave and walk home. As I come into the yard, a squirrel starts to go under the house through rotten boards. He stops and I see he has no head--a bloody fringe of hair. A wolf chases him towards me and I see he has half a face, one eye and a tusk of bone sticking out. The squirrel goes up the front steps and into the house. I follow and an old man comes in, and a bear cub and the wolf (who is smaller now and not fearful). I look around for something to throw at them. I see mother's flower pots. I throw the smallest and ugliest. It is enough. As it shatters, the old man changes into a big bear and runs away, along with the cub and the wolf that is now a scroungy dog. Mother is standing beside me, smiling and showing me a note the old man had written when he came into the house while I was away. "I'm a Catholic." Mother says, "His hand never touches paper and pencil very often." I notice I'm still in pajamas. I say, "This is what well-dressed railroad clerk wears. We laugh and are happy together. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | The end of the world is coming and the believers have a way of calculating when. They place a thumb and forefinger into a crescent and count each joint as a time segment. Then they count back to joint of index finger to joint by fingernail. There is tied a paper bag of sacred jo-jo beans to "fuel them to heaven." | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I'm at the house where I lived when I was 12 to 14. I am a grader in a college chemistry course. I have quizzes to grade and return. I know the answers and all I have to do is copy on thirty papers. I go out and start a fire in edge of yard where a woodpile is outside fence parallel with alley. I start it two or three places, thinking it will heat the house twenty yards away, since a pipe-chimney points upwards--no rational connection to the house. The fire gets out of hand and I'm late for class, and mother is too crippled to put it out. I think of water--too big for buckets. I decide to throw burning logs into snow. Only thirty minutes left to get to class. Great frustration, and anger at myself for starting the fire. Why did I do it? I ask as dream ends. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I'm in a boat, large enough to hold about twenty people. We hear someone yell, "Help, help." We know the captain heard it, but ignored the sound. So we tell him and pointed to the woman in the water. He quickly made the boat turn in a sharp curve, perhaps in anger, and came close to the person in the dark water--it is and isn't night--suddenly I am on the shore of white sand or moonlight that makes everything white as snow. I said to myself, "It is snow except it is not cold, so it must be sand." The woman comes to shore, wading in the shallow water. The boat is not in sight. I feel the captain knew she was not in any danger. Others beside the woman walk ashore in the shallow water. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I have a stick of dynamite like a large firecracker with fuse at top in a glass tube filled with kerosene. It is dangerous, but is safe as long as kerosene surrounds it. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | There are two actresses. One resembles Marlena Dietrich. She is haughty and will not stay in a room near the stage. She wants best hotel in town. The other actress, like Simone Signoret, is willing to stay anywhere we want to put her. I look in Dickens novels for a room and realize I cannot find it there and we laugh at my error. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I was at a shrine or cemetery or World War I memorial battlefield--most like a Catholic shrine. A man there about 70, bald with a patch on top of his head. He has fishhooks in his face, about a hundred of them, most showing through with hook on outside. It is a religious persecution or martyrdom. The man tells me he is from Trent, England. I comment on his similarity to American English. The man collects donations and while he talks, a man from the Retreat Center, a pastor, gives him a coin wrapped in paper stuffed in folds of his overalls near one of his knees as he is seated. I determine to give him at least a dollar since I have talked with him and used up some of his time. He tells me about the part he played in RAF and battle of Britain. He was burned and was not expected to live. As he says that, I look at his face and it has pink look of old burns and scars .. fishhooks missing. Since he recovered, he decided to dedicate himself to God and honor dead friends and patriots in the war. A young American walks up and hears the talk of his injuries during the war. He is agitated and almost screams about the injustice of it all. I am not clear what injustice. He is talking too much for me to ask. He is or resembles a follower of Trotsky with T-type beard. I wander off to get my check. It is Friday afternoon and I want to get to bank before it closes. I know where railroad pays--it is at French town. I see art of Jean del Ville I studied last week in symbolist book. I walk in heavy traffic to get there and at an intersection there is a little park of dead grass. A painter at my college is on the grass. I am hot and dusty and have my coat draped over my arm. He grabs the coat and dances around, not giving it back. Very playful. I am not amused and since I find a ball-peen hammer in my hand, I throw it at his dancing feet hard as possible. It hits him on the ankle. Immediately he changes to a thin man about 35 who resembles him in skinny body. He continues to dance with my coat, not wanting to give it back. I pick up a stick like a broken pool cue. It is sharp as a spear where the hardwood split on the grain. But I hit him on the ass as if spanking a child. He gives it back, still laughing. The traffic is worse than ever since tourists leaving France go the same road to airport as I to railroad for my check. I realize railroad and banks open on following Saturday AM. So I quit. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | Ross from Ireland baked cookies--two about 4 inch by 8 inch oblong-rectangles. One dark molasses, the other tan. Both cut into little rectangles and I assumed more for ceremonial bread than for eating. The tan cut into even neater and smaller rectangles the size of sugar cubes. As he picked it up to distribute it as at the Mass, it suddenly became five layers thick, beautiful and golden tan, too precious to take and break up its perfect geometric shape. He passes among us and we admire its beauty. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I'm at the railroad. A man comes up to me in the parking lot who sells boots. My son, Reynaldo, about 8-10, has complained about a last pair that hurt his toe. He has his foot in a square shoe-box with oilcloth over the foot so I can see the hurt toe sticking up at a knuckle, like a large corn that is inflamed. He said he has a more expensive pair that will not hurt him. I become angry and said, "I suppose it costs $60-$80 to $100. I don't trust you. And I think your merchandise is inferior." The man says nothing but grits his strong square jaw and gets back in the car with his two sons. I drive off before he does, still fuming. Suddenly I am feeling guilty to have done it in front of three of my children and Emma. I realize I should have been quiet and gone shopping at another store. And I feel angry at myself for not giving him a chance to speak and defend himself. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I am crossing a low and sluggish river where a bridge once was. There is mud and slime on everything, as if a flood recently had subsided. And it is ugly with dregs--toilet paper and turds like drying sewage? or little sticks? I walk carefully on the stones to get across. A dirty-looking man behind me sloshes through the mud and water, at times up to his knees. He seems to be following me. He has a scraggly chestnut beard, torn shirt, and frayed blue denim trousers. I think he is talking to me. Then I see his angry talk is to himself. Then I know that he is a scientist talking to portable tape recorder. He is reporting on environment, on harmful things in the river. A pollution study. I leave him by going up the bank by using broken timbers of bridge foundation as a ladder. I look behind and he is not following me. On a bank overlooking the river chasm, I have a secret apartment. I go in and immediately go to a bed against a wall and midway between two other walls. I have sex with a young woman about twenty. We try every position I wish. She is cheerful and obedient to my wishes. Mostly she is on bottom. We both watch my penis move in and out slowly. I'm impressed how long I keep the erection. It is a real size, not exaggerated. The penis is stronger in focus than the girl. She is pretty and honey-colored long hair. No talk or odd behavior at all. A grey blur? No. But not equally strong willed. I realize door is unlocked. What if my friend Jean comes to the door? I go and lock on inside. I must find the key to lock when I am away. I look for a moment in desk by door. I decide to search the room later, and head back for bed. As I went to door, bright moon made me think of Jean's hair. Or was it streetlight? I realize I haven't paid rent for 6 months. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I am in the north woods. I seen ten men working on an old log house--preparing it for national preservation--like a museum so people see how it was done earlier in history. They are taking off a layer on every surface. The logs are square so the surface can be cleaned as an old floor is sanded. It was a house of the "Longworth" family--the father and sons built it as a wedding present for their daughter. The house is purple with other colors like gold and silver sheen on its surface--like sap dyes in fresh oak wood. The windows are like Eisenglass colored more gold than purple--so much that I could not see furniture in the front room through it. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I am in new bookstore. On my way to the books I pass through a small annex in the front where I see a friend. He says he is in charge of the magazines. I think that he is too lazy and disorganized to handle it. I do not see any. He had put them behind curtains, neatly stacked shelves close to the floor. I pick up a large one, the size of "Rolling Stone"--3 feet by 2 feet. It is strange eccentric classic faces on small bodies as short as face. The faces have flesh-colored tones. I turn the page and it is a picture of children in a garden gathering flowers. Every flower is an erect penis about a foot long--a little like a tulip but closer to big erect phallus with pink head or knob than more red. | male | 1940-1998 |
emmas_husband | Emma's Husband | I am in the desert and a musical gathering is just ending. The young people are there with guitars and banjos--mostly guitars--sitting around and waiting... My son Reynaldo and I watch new arrivals, especially a "New York psychiatrist" who is dressed in shiny shark-skin dark blue metallic suit and a hat with a snappy small brim--too tiny to be of help in the desert sun. No one notices him, so he sounds excessively happy--like an actor who demands the limelight--"I love young people and their music." The small hat has a brush or feathers in the band like Bavarian or Alpine hat. While most sprawled asleep, a truck pulled up to take them home or back to town or to bus or airport. It was a combination camper and British two-decker bus. It filled quickly top and bottom. Reynaldo and I climb onto trailer it pulls as it moves. The trailer suddenly becomes a long mattress with a person here and there on its large space. It is as wide as the highway, but about two to three blocks long. I wonder how engine of the bus can pull it. It rolls over rocks and road signs and guardrails easily ... and bends easily over hills and curves. The bus stops at a destination, and it switches back from long mattress to trailer carrying machinery that is sharp, dangerous and gun-metal blue. Same color as NYC psychiatrist's suit. Reynaldo is impressed how nimbly I climb over the machinery and get to the ground before him. I know it is experience at railroad and mountains, but do not say so to him. | male | 1940-1998 |