shoes in a secret room

I was inside a rambling old house of many levels, in a room on the second top floor. There were several people with me who had just returned from the top level where they had found some fantastic shoes that they said were free for the taking. I admired the shoes as they were so unusual and decided to venture up the winding stairs and corridors to the room with the shoes. I climbed the steep staircase and crept along the hall. The walls closed in the the hall became a narrow tunnel; I had to crawl along on my hands and knees as the corridor turned and curled. Onward I crawled, feeling uneasy as the space became tighter and tighter. FInally, I found myself in a bright room, filled with natural light. In the centre of the room was a pile of suitcases and shelves on which the most stylish and sensational shoes were displayed - vintage shoes, new boots, and designer shoes. I selected a few pairs but then became fully aware of my surroundings. I realised that this was someone's bedroom and that we were taking shoes that belonged to the absent occupant. I put the shoes back on the shelves and hurried back along the claustrophobic corridors so that I could tell the others and prevent them from taking what didn't belong to them.

falling & reflection

I was in an elevator with several other people. Instead of simply moving up and down between floors, the lift veered sideways, shooting left and right erratically. Finally, it hurtled down, rushing toward the ground. We were not sure if we were going to die. Just before hitting the ground, the elevator braked and we all emerged, shaken but unhurt.
Next, my good friend A and I were walking through a building toward the exit door, in the city of Newcastle. Outside, night was falling. The sky was the wonderful periwinkle blue of twilight. We were carrying folders and books under our arms and were dressed for business. I understood somehow that we were on the board for an organisation of interest and that we were also visiting Sydney. As we walked together to our meeting, we reflected on how twenty years earlier we had walked together through the streets of Sydney wearing our comfortable dancing clothes, carrying our books, when we were students together.

cleaning house & spider rescue

I was helping to clean our family home in preparation for visitors. Everything had obviously been neglected for some time. There were hessian sacks and sheets covering the floor. I pulled them up, revealing the floor beneath, and swept it clean. We weeded, polished, dusted and swept the entire space. Outside, I could see a beautiful courtyard that had brick paths bordering the area in a rectangular shape with a garden in the centre. I walked through the courtyard and climbed onto the roof of the open-walled shed at the back of the garden. I cleaned the roof and then thought I would climb back down by squeezing between the roof and the walls, so that I could collect some flowers for the house. As I was about to edge through the gap, I spied a large spider in its web just under the roof. I could see that it was idle but I felt a wave of anxiety rise within me. I decided to climb down the way I had climbed up but it had all changed. I couldn't find another way down and would have to wriggle through the gap next to the spider. I began to imagine how many more spiders there might be hiding under the shed roof amidst the foliage and my anxiety became unbearable. I lay down on the roof, my fingers feeling the cracks between the planks of wood and tried to call out. I could see my mother and father in the window back at the house. I called out again and again, trying to be heard, but my voice was just a whisper. Finally I managed some volume and both of my parents heard me. My father jumped out of the window and leapt through the air, crossing the entire courtyard without laying a foot on it, leaping an impossible distance onto the roof of the shed. I was amazed at the seemingly super-human power he had summoned in response to his daughter's distress.

strange family

I was visiting a family that lived in an outer suburb of Newcastle. The father had died only the day before but the family was faring reasonably well. The mother, an elderly woman, was short and quite rounded and she had the most prominent nose: a great curved beak jutting out from her face alarmingly. She wore a headscarf and a house apron tied around her waist. Although she welcomed me into her home, she preferred to keep her own company. She stayed in a room underneath the house, sitting on a reclining armchair pulled as close to the old television set as she could manage, and watched programs to block out the world. I spent some time with her children: an assortment of red-haired young women and dark-haired young men. They were all peculiarly old-fashioned, like people from another time. The girls wore spotted smock-like pinafores over white blouses and their skin was pale and freckled. We sat at a large dining table and proceeded to eat and talk. The oldest male stood and tapped his glass with a spoon, indicating that he had something to say and that we should all pay attention. I do not recall what he said but I noticed that he looked a lot like a man I knew when I was a teenager. I wondered how they were related or if this was indeed him. I left the house and felt grateful for my own family.

cherry, performing and old man

I dyed my hair a shade of cherry: deep pink brown with luscious berry streaks. I found two dark pinks lipsticks, quite different to shades I would choose in waking life, and thought that they would match nicely with my new hair colour. I tried the first lipstick but it crumbled in its case as it was so old. I threw it away. The second lipstick was creamy and moist. I applied it and felt satisfied.
Next, I was about to perform in a show; at times the show was in a theatre and at times it was in an outdoor auditorium space. I was ready to walk down the stairs into the audience, arriving from the rear of the theatre, when I bumped into a mentor of mine. I told her that I that I had not been singing in public for some years and I spoke of the nerves that choked me and of my desire to overcome them. She told me that, besides singing as the last act in the show, I would be acting in a short play earlier in the evening. I could not remember rehearsing the play and felt quite panicked, knowing that I had no idea about the lines or even the concept of the play itself. Nevertheless, I was prepared to perform and continued down the stairs into the audience where I would wait for my cue.
Next, I recall another show about to begin. I had been invited to see it but I had discovered that a particular performer was the lead in the show and I instantly lost interest. I crept into the filling auditorium to recover a few of my belongings that I had placed on a seat in the back row. Particularly, I was looking for my toothbrush so that I could brush my teeth. I left the theatre as quietly as possible.
Finally, B and I were walking through the main street of Maleny. It was very different to the street as it is in waking life, but I knew that I was in Maleny. We passed a busker who had a dangerous energy. He was of indefinite age although I could see that he probably looked a lot older than he was because of a rough and scarred life. He was wearing an old, worn flannelette shirt and ripped trousers, sported a beard, and we could smell him as we walked past. He reeked. B walked ahead of me and slipped into a vintage store, perhaps to lose the man who seemed to follow us up the street. By the time I reached the store, I walked in but couldn't see her. I felt sure that the man was following us and looked for somewhere to hide. For a moment, I was distracted by a cherry silk top hanging among the vintage clothing, but upon closer examination, it was covered in stains. I saw a changing room covered by an old curtain, so I pulled the curtain aside. B was in there, hiding, so I joined her and we both hid from the man. Sure enough, he followed us in and hunted for us amid the vintage wares. He soon spotted the changing room and walked over; we could smell him coming. He tugged at the curtain and we tried in vain to hold it fast. He opened it and stuck his head through, sneering at us. B managed to leave the store, waiting for me outside. She became another person entirely: a young, blonde woman. From inside the shop, I watched as the man went outside and embraced the young woman. She looked surprised, perhaps even repulsed, but she also swooned at his touch. She said that she had not felt such passion in an embrace for the longest time.

sloping floor

I was in a huge auditorium with shiny wooden floors and raked seating, enough to seat several thousand people. The floor sloped down toward the stage and the auditorium was empty apart from a woman I know and me. I was in there to collect something I had left behind. I searched the identical rows, looking for the seat where I had been sitting before the auditorium emptied. I located it and found the thing which I cannot now recall. I was preoccupied by the sloping floor that seemed to be steeper and more slippery than before. I called out a warning to my friend and stepped out of the row into the side aisle and, sure enough, I started to slide, to skate, rapidly down the floor, which was now a very steep hill, toward the flat brick wall under the raised stage. I rocketed down at an alarming speed and tried to prepare myself for impact. I thwacked into the wall but was unhurt. I could then see a few other people doing their best to negotiate the dangerously sloping floor as they shot toward the same brick wall.

old house and bad driving

I was living in a rambling old house with several others. There seemed to be a group of men and a group of women. The four women and I were sharing the large L-shaped lounge room and dining room, and the men slept elsewhere in the house, probably in the bedrooms. The women and I were doing our best to arrange the furniture and clean the space. Each of us had a queen sized bed, plus there were tables, a lounge suite, clothing, a television, shelves and rugs to consider. We moved my bed and the round dining table into the dining room space. I was quite happy as I had slightly more privacy than the others as well as the advantage of natural light; one wall was lined with windows. We arranged the other three beds at the far corners of the lounge room and placed the lounge suite in the centre of the room, both because it acted as a room divider and it was the best vantage point from where to view the television. Some of the narrow tables we placed on top of one another against the walls, opting for floor space over table surface space. We then scooped armfuls of clothing from the ground and did our best to organise our wardrobes. The only disadvantage of my 'bedroom' space was that it was so far away from where our clothes were to be kept, in the hall space just off the other end of the lounge room.
Next, I was driving home - home being the place described above. B was beside me and, although I was not driving fast, I suddenly had to stop to avoid hitting the car in front. I realised that I was driving a manual car and momentarily forgot how to drive it. I couldn't find the foot brake so I pulled on the handbrake, stopping the car only a hair space from the vehicle in front. The line of traffic inched forward, starting and stopping, but each time I accelerated I had great difficulty braking the car even though I was driving slowly. At one point I even put my hand through the windscreen and pushed the car in front of us away as we approached it, because otherwise we would have nudged it forward. We passed a police car on our right and I hoped they would not notice us. I wondered if I had been drinking because I was driving so erratically, but I couldn't remember having done so.