old friends

I was sitting with a group of people – part of an audience. Behind me sat a man that I have known since we were both two years old. He was talking to me quietly, whispering that he had kept a record of some of the things that I had said and done when I was young, that he remembered our past. I remained facing forward but listened to him, and reminded him that he was my oldest friend. I felt that he knew me.

Next, I was sitting with another group of people, again as part of an audience. Beside me sat S, one of the two identical twins who had been my friends since we were five years old. She put her hand into a packet of food, but when she removed her hand, her finger was bleeding. She started to cry, saying that I had hurt her. I was concerned and touched her hand. I noticed that her fingernails were long and red whilst mine were short and unpainted. I asked her how I had hurt her, thinking that she meant the cut on her hand. She told me that I had not listened to her. That whenever we, a group of friends, gathered together, we did not ask her about herself or her life. I felt guilty and agreed that we usually talked about the ever-changing events of the lives of the others while her life seemed so staid in comparison. She intimated that the constant changes of our lives were an indication of problems in our characters.

Later, I visited S at her house; she was preparing for a wedding to which I was not invited. We talked about how she was going to wear her hair and she showed me how she wanted it to look. I thought she looked nice but also thought that the style was very dated. I felt as though my life was very different to hers.

Later again, I was standing between rows of seats in a stadium. The man betrothed to S came to talk with me. He was tall and laughing, joking about something. I cannot recall more than this.

flying sheep

There was a white sheep flying past. Her wings were rounded — simple, flapping wings without grace. She had large burgundy spots on her coat. After she flew past, I drew her likeness on a piece of scrap cardboard so that I could remember the way that she looked. I drew her wearing ear phones, listening to music as she flew. I named her Sally.

cars

I was driving along a street that had a closed lane, so that only one lane was available. The two-way traffic was blocked and a road worker was doing his best to move the traffic, first the traffic travelling in one direction, and then the traffic travelling in the opposite direction. It was our turn to drive whilst the rest of the traffic waited to one side. As I drove around a blind bend in the road, an impatient taxi driver broke queue and drove directly toward me. I was driving quite slowly so I was able to gently brake to a halt but the taxi driver had to screech to a stop. The noses of our cars touched lightly. He had to reverse all the way back to the end of the queue whilst I moved slowly forward. I turned into a driveway leading to the car park under the David Jones building and called out something to the taxi driver, telling him off. He looked cranky.

Later, I was driving out of the car park. I was behind another car waiting at the gate, a work vehicle. When the gate opened, I rushed out behind the car in front and he moved forward so that I could fit through before the gate automatically closed behind us. Our cars melded into one and I found myself on the back seat of his car. He offered me a cigarette which I refused after considering it. We drove out of the car park.

high-rise

I was living in a high-rise building, one level from the top. I was downstairs in the store that occupied the ground floor of the building. The cosmetic counter was giving out sample bags. I took a white plastic sample bag and went to the elevator in the foyer, ready to go up to my room. I read the floor directory, whilst waiting for the life, and noticed that ‘STAFF’ lived on the third floor from the top. Instead of travelling in a straight vertical line, the lift shot off to one side through an outlet in the wall of the building, and then up the side of the building, zigzagging at times, to the second-top level. I had to hang on to the railing around the walls of the lift to keep from rolling around. Once inside my room, I opened the bag and removed the cosmetics. There were other samples such as a box of small brushes like toothbrushes, made from real bristles and with carved wooden handles. I offered someone else their choice of brushes and they chose three. I selected two for myself and kept another couple for someone special. I also noticed that there were a couple of packets of menthol cigarettes in the bag. I went back downstairs to the foyer which had become a busy hub of activity. I was trying to find something to wear. I went to a walk-in wardrobe that was nestled at the back of the foyer; my cupboard. I looked through my clothes and tried a few things on: a green striped top that I tried to match with some stripey pants. The pants turned out to be part of an old clown costume and they looked way too big for me. I tried on other stripey pants but nothing looked fantastic. I settled on some average-looking pants and went back outside. The younger sister of a close friend was outside, looking for cigarettes. I told her that I had some upstairs that I didn’t want but I was not sure that I should be giving them to her. She said she was going to get some anyway. I noticed that everyone was smoking the new white menthol cigarettes. I made the wild journey back up the lift and found the packets of cigarettes to give to her.

Go-Go, Stacey & Mr Cunningham

A black dog called Go-Go and a white rabbit called Stacey are best friends. They are running around, chasing each other. Mr Cunningham, a dog-man wearing a black t-shirt and moving down the road in a wheelchair, throws coins at Go-Go and Stacey. Much to Mr Cunningham’s displeasure, they catch the coins with ease. They throw the money back at the dog-man. It lands on his vast stomach and a small puff of dust billows from out of his t-shirt where the coins land.

Black Inked Diamond Python

I am in deep water. There seems to be water everywhere. To my left, B is showering, standing in a cubicle like a cage that is raised just above the water. There is a Black Inked Diamond Python swimming in the water. His long body swirls around me, curling and twisting in the depths below. He is a long snake with a black diamond pattern running down his back and with rainbow tips at both ends of his body – his head and tail are brightly painted red, blue, green and yellow. B doesn’t want to come out of the shower until the python is gone, so when he swims close enough to me I grab him at either end of his body. He writhes in my hands and it is difficult to tell which end is his head and which end is his tail. Eventually, rather than being caught, he opens his mouth and bites off his rainbow tail. Black ink seeps out of his wound into the water and clouds over his head poisoning him. He dies.

child

I was visiting the home of a woman and her child. It was late afternoon and I felt in limbo, not sure of what to do. Earlier, there had been more people gathered, but now, the visitors had all left. The woman’s sister had gone to be with her partner and child – they had a feeling of ‘home’ with one another. I asked the woman, who looked to be in her mid-fifties, if she was happy that she had had a child and she told me that she was too old and too tired. Though she loved him, she wished she hadn’t. It was time to rest. I lay on a bed near the window with B. We looked out and could see a woman walking along the street. As she came nearer, she became younger and divided into two young girls of about fourteen or so. Both had long frizzy hair and were part indigenous. They came up to the window and began talking to us. They looked at my fingernails and commented upon the wide moons at the base of my nails (that looked much bigger and more definite than in real-life), saying they were genetic and mutant. (?) One of the girls asked if she could cut my fingernails and although I am particular about how they are cut, I let her. She cut the nails of my right hand rather haphazardly and I knew I would redo them later, but it was important to me that we formed a bond. When she had finished, she became younger and younger until she was just a baby. I rolled her onto her back and tickled her tummy, before rocking her to sleep. I put her up on a high shelf, toward the back and nestled between some soft toys, so that she wouldn’t fall out. I went and checked on the rest of the house. There were children sleeping in a couple of the rooms. I went back to where I had placed the baby, trying to work out if the shelf was the safest place for her to sleep.

wedding & butcher

My sister and I were preparing for a wedding. It was the day of the celebration and the guests were gathering. We arrived at the building where the wedding was to take place: a ground-level hall with stone arches and stone slab flooring. We were wearing white. We walked past the ceremonial area arm in arm and I realised that we were to be married to one another. I was alarmed and spoke with my sister saying that although I loved her, I did not want to get married to her. She agreed. We called off the wedding.

I was standing in line at a butcher shop. The shop fronted onto a stone paved footpath, open to the outdoors. In front of me at the counter was a woman with blond hair, wearing a white nightdress. She was barefoot. She ordered a big slab of meat which a butcher was weighing on a set of scales. She ordered a bigger piece, lamb I think, which he proceeded to weigh. She was telling the butcher that she was in love with another butcher who worked there. She wanted the first butcher to tell the other man of her love for him. He suggested that I was close to the man and that I could tell him. The woman turned around and begged me to tell the butcher of her love for him. Although I empathised with her, I felt resistant and protective of the butcher.

walking on hands

I was walking in the late afternoon sunshine with some other women, along winding paths, through the trees. We were happy and talking—going home. We started down a hill with steps carved into the grass. Instead of walking upright, I walked on my hands with my body stretched out behind me, at right angles to my arms. I felt the edge of each step against my palms. My arms were strong and my body felt like it was floating.

dogs & money

Dogs
I was standing at the back of a small crowd. We were all facing a stage of some sort. A black dog suddenly leapt toward me through the crowd, placing his paws on my chest, before vanishing. Another dog followed, this one small and white with rounded ears, jumping up and placing tiny paws on my chest before leaving the room. A third dog, with orangey woolly hair, leapt up through the crowd, placing two paws on my chest. I patted all three dogs affectionately and told the last dog that it was beautiful. They seemed to be displaying gratitude and loyalty.

Money
I was worried about money. I had had an art exhibition and knew that I had sold lots of paintings, but I did not have any money. I wanted to check my wallet but someone was withholding it. I demanded it and they handed it over. I looked through the wallet and pulled out a bunch of invoices or receipts, proof that I had sold a lot of work. I started sorting through them, trying to work out how much money I should have. I looked away for a moment, and when I looked back, I had a pile of money. I felt great relief and happiness to have finally found my own wealth.

lucid dream

I had a lucid dream. In ‘real-life’, the wind was howling, whistling through invisible cracks in the building. I was wakeful but slipped in and out of strange sleep. I closed my eyes and found myself in a bedroom that I thought to be mine. It was about three-thirty in the morning. I opened the door to the open-plan living space and realised that we had left loud music playing on repeat. I rushed over to the stereo and turned it off. The sound of the wind carried into the dream, filling the void left by the music, and I realised that I was dreaming. I looked around and discovered that the wind was whistling through a telephone jack. I pushed off the ground and leapt onto a table, moving through the air softly, almost flying. I reached over and switched the phone jack off. The wind quieted but could still be heard softly blowing in a thin and delicate whisper. I decided to experiment with gravity and movement, knowing that this was a dream. I jumped from the table, a grand jeté, gliding through the air and down to the ground some metres away. I then lay down on the wooden floor and levitated about thirty centimetres from the ground. I wanted to fly higher, willing myself to do so, but my body obeyed only some of my mental commands. I had a strange tingling sensation running through my limbs, as though I could not move them at all. I woke and the tingling, petrified feeling remained in my arms and legs for some time.

swimming

I was talking with two jazz musicians – both old men with blue eyes. Following the conversation, I dived into an indoor swimming pool, along with a few other people. I swam with great ease and power, circumnavigating the pool again and again, dipping and rising like a porpoise. Someone handed me a board, much like the lid of an esky, and I began to ride it around the pool, using it to propel myself up and out of the water, shooting up higher each time, until I nearly touched the extremely high ceiling, the blade of an oscillating fan brushing against my cheek. I put the board aside and swam down underneath the water to the bottom where there sat a girl of about twenty-five, with black swirling hair. I joined her, sitting on the bottom of the pool, looking around through the blue water at the legs of the other swimmers. It was peaceful and we could breathe as normal. I asked her why she wasn’t swimming on the surface with the others and she told me that she had a problem with her neck, perhaps a fracture. I tried to think of how I could help her, deciding that massage was too risky with such a problem, but felt that I could help to heal her or at least make the pain subside. I warmed my hands with my breath and placed them on the back of her neck firmly, leaving them there so that the warmth would penetrate her body. I repeated the process several times until she was well and wanted to swim to the surface. We hopped out of the pool and had to leave this part of the building by means of a series of escalators. I was worried as I had bare feet, the ridged metal escalator stairs painful under the soles of my feet and potentially dangerous. I found the process of choosing and stepping onto the escalator stairs very overwhelming. Finally, we reached a counter where everyone was lining up to collect tickets. I was handed two drink tickets and I realised that it was New Year’s Eve. I momentarily wished that I had not driven so that I could have some champagne, but then decided that I was happy to drink mineral water. I found a bar and went inside, looking for my friends.

cups & healing

I wanted to buy a pair of cups, so I went to a gift shop to search for cups that I particularly liked. They did not need to be identical, in fact, it was preferable if I could find cups that were unique, but that looked good together. It so happened that there had been a cup sale, so the shelf where the cups had been stacked was almost bare. I looked among the left-over cups, finding only two cups that seemed to go together, but both were based on a shell motif: the cup walls shaped like shells, spiraling up to the opening at top. One was yellow, the other green. I was not happy with them as I felt that they were somewhat garish, so I began searching around the shop, in corners and behind other objects, determined to find cups that I loved. I found a small cup, perfect for espresso, white with a beautiful green pattern painted on the walls of the cup – a sturdy yet delicate piece and beautiful to hold. I searched the shop for a mate for the sweet cup.

Later, I was going somewhere where I was to be rejuvenated: a bay with lots of clear water, as well as swimming pools lining the shore. I understood that I was meant to play tennis, but I felt unprepared as I wasn’t wearing any shoes or appropriate clothing – I was wearing swimmers. I decided that I would watch as others played. Before the game, I went to see a healer—a homeopath, I believe. She looked into my face, said that she could see that I was tired, and then went behind a counter to mix some remedies. When she had finished, I went to the counter and B said something about two cents. I said that I had two cents, opened my purse and produced the coin. The healer said that she didn’t want my money and passed me the vials of medicine – ten vials arranged in a triangle or pyramid – one, then a line of two, then three and then four. I knew that I was to begin treatment and then I had to go back to her to have a body realignment later in the day.