octopus arms

We were in my grandparents' home, down the road from where I lived when I was a child. I was in the third bedroom, the spare room with a double bed. My friend called me and I found her in the first bedroom where I slept over many a night when I was young, in a single bed alongside the window. The bed was gone and a big silver refrigerator stood where the cupboard had been. The fridge door was ajar and my friend was looking inside and to the floor in horror. 'Look', she said. There were two long octopus arms, one on the top shelf of the fridge door and the other on the floor, writhing and wriggling as though they were alive. The arm on the shelf was obviously trying to get inside a jar that held something soaking in a milky liquid and the arm on the floor was travelling across the carpet, back toward the fridge. We stared, fixated on the macabre spectacle, not sure what to do. What was it inside the jar that so compelled the suckered arms? Suddenly my friend was angry and said something I didn't understand. Her sentence made no sense and the words seemed mixed up. She stormed out of the room and phoned someone, seemingly to do something about the wandering arms. I ran to the kitchen and grabbed an axe, thinking that my friend was upset because I had not acted quickly enough. I hurried back to the first bedroom and my friend had already returned there, also wielding an axe. She swung her axe through the air, chopping the arm on the floor in half. I tried to knock the other arm off the refrigerator-door shelf onto the floor, but in so doing, I knocked over a container of food, which spilled all over the carpet. Now the second octopus arm was squirming about in a mess of lentils. I painstakingly scraped everything up off the floor, depositing it onto some newspaper, which I disposed of. The person my friend had called had arrived and now they were leaving together. I was upset as my friend was still angry with me and I was not sure why. She had spoken to me a few more times but, frustratingly, I could not understand her words. Sitting on the floor in the first bedroom, I called out to her, desperate for her to come back so that we could work it out. Instead, her friend came into the room and, with her face very close to mine, so close I observed her mascara, said it was sad that I would be sitting at home crying, working all day on my birthday while my friend was out. I was shocked to realise that it was my birthday and even sadder to think I would spend it alone, working.

I woke from this dream with the sadness in my body. Rather than beginning the day this way, I chose to close my eyes and return to the scene of the dream. Although I didn't fall asleep, I imagined the dream playing out a different way; I imagined a happier dream. At the point where we were standing, watching the octopus arms wriggle towards the jar, I asked my friend what was in the jar. She told me it was the rest of the octopus, soaking in milk to soften it for cooking. We decided that, seeing as the octopus body parts seemed to be alive, we would return them to the ocean and, because it was my birthday, we would take the day off, swim and enjoy the day and each other's company. We collected the arms and the jar and took the car that was garaged underneath the house, driving through the suburbs to the sea. Once there, we emptied the contents of the jar and the two arms into the waves, leaving them to reunite, and we frolicked on the shore. I felt much happier after re-imagining my dream.

friend, noisy men and colour

All fragmented, scattered dreams of late. Difficult to piece together and communicate.

I was outside the house of my late grandmother and grandfather, having walked the streets to get there. It was now dark and I wanted to go in. I found my dear friend, also heading there, and we arrived together. I felt that we were closely bonded, though we hadn't seen each other for some time. His family and some of mine were inside. I noticed a huge painting on the wall, a dark blue and green abstract of a woman, painted in acrylics. I recognised the style as my friend's wife's. I went into number one bedroom to change my clothing, but detoured to another place, another house. There, I was expected to eat dinner and, although I wanted to see the people there too, I was rushing as I knew I was expected back at my grandmother's house before midnight. I understood that I was to meet someone there. The dinner was delicious seafood  in broth. I didn't want to hurry, but I felt urgent. After dinner, I remembered that I needed to change my clothing. I found a suitcase of clothes and rummaged through it, finding a pale pink shift, jeans, a chocolate coat and brown boots. This would do. I changed and started the journey back, but it was nearing twelve and I could not remember how to get there.

Later, I was driving out of an industrial estate. Buildings ringed with scaffolding, men leaning on ladders, machinery roaring. I wanted to be somewhere quiet. I drove along the footpath, as though walking, and waited at the lights. My car diminished, becoming nothing more than a scooter or something similar. The protective walls of the car were gone. A man stood in the middle of a main road, conducting traffic around the roadworks. Car engines, trucks and heavy machinery; all loud. A young man working on the site, came over and leaned on me, his arms around me heavy and blackened with grease. I felt uncomfortable.

Later again, I was at a hairdresser's studio. I was going to have my hair done and I was looking at colour swatches, to choose a shade. Instead of swatches of hair, the colours were displayed in an intricate drawing, each aspect of the drawing a different colour. It was a complicated system as, say, part of a leaf, or a rabbit, might be a different shade of gold, with no label or information to clarify the shade. I was supposed to find a preferred shade among the hundreds, and name it.

strangers

I was living with my parents in the house we built when I was young. My bed was in their bedroom - 'the main bedroom', as we called it - and their bed was in an adjoining room, where the verandah was in real life. It was the middle of the night and, instead of sleeping, I was walking as quietly as possible around the house, looking at my artwork. I was trying to price the various pieces for sale, doing my best to set a good price with which I was happy, but that I knew would move the work. I noticed that the frames of several paintings needed repair, that the work inside had slipped. After making some decisions, I walked through the dark to the bedroom and lay down on the bed. The mattress was on the floor, as though I was there only temporarily. I noticed that it was warmer than it had been when I first arrived some months before, and that I no longer needed the quilt; it was heaped in the corner. Suddenly I noticed a light - torchlight - beaming about the room. I hid under the quilt and the intruders obviously thought there was no one home, for they immediately began talking loudly and switching on lights downstairs. They flicked on the television and the stereo and the house, in the dead of night, was filled with ugly noise. I went into my parents' room; they were waking, not sure what was going on. They were each holding a cigarette and a packet of tobacco was lying on the bed. They looked surprised, as was I, as neither of them have ever smoked. They put out the butts and we went downstairs to see what was going on. I went first, my temper flaring as I saw two people - a young man and his girlfriend - taking food out of the refrigerator, helping themselves. I raced up to the man, whose horrible energy betrayed the kind of person he was, and shouted at him: This is not a share house, this is a family home. You have no right to be here. Take yourselves out of here. Get out. Instead, he grabbed me around the throat and pushed me up against a wall. I could feel how strong and wiry he was, how pumped up with aggression, and I knew that I was in an extremely dangerous situation. The girl kept laughing, louder and louder. Her mouth was open, screaming with laughter. My parents stood to one side and I knew my father was about to intervene.
Later, I was on a beach. I could see my family (my extended family) swimming in the water, but I sat up on the sand. Finally, my father came to fetch me. We walked down the sand and stepped into the water, which stretched out under a ceiling of rock - a cave of sorts - before continuing on past the cave, out to the ocean. Under the arch of rock, the water was in semi-darkness. It was quite scary, not being able to see properly. I felt bits of weed and other creatures brush past me, and I was not sure that I liked it here. My father assured me that it was alright. After a while, someone came to usher us out. It was another family's turn to swim in the sea. We filed out and up the sand, while a Maori family filed down the sand and into the water. They were also going to give a small performance for their extended family, later in the day, and I wondered if we were to stay to watch. I saw a woman sitting to one side, someone I have not seen for twenty years and whom I was excited to see. I ran over to say hello, but she didn't recognise me. I reminded her of our connection, but she was entirely unenthusiastic. I wished her well and walked away; as I went, I could hear her laughing behind me.

things not as they should be

I was visiting my parents. They lived in a home unfamiliar to me, a one-storey brick house with a level back yard. I was attempting to do my washing, but the washing machine appeared to be full. I investigated further and could see that under the layer of clothing on top of the load were a lot of things that simply should not have been in the washing machine, particularly grass clippings and sticks. I skimmed the clothes off the surface, piling them into a basket, and then fished handfuls of the grass and foliage out of the tub. Once all the grass was removed, I could see more clothes stuffed underneath, floating in muddy, grimy water. I looked around to find some rubber gloves, unwilling to dip my bare hands into the water.
Next, I was in the kitchen with my parents. The window looked directly into the neighbours' kitchen window next door and I could see our prime minister inside, visiting with them. He was happy and laughing, and soon the walls between the two homes melded and he was in our kitchen. He asked me if I could edit an essay for him later this week. I told him that I was booked up with other work and would not be able to fit it in. He said he would reward me handsomely and so I said that I would look into rearranging my schedule. He told me that he would have been an editor in another life and I answered that I imagine we all have other lives we could have lived, that I could have pursued dancing or singing and that I had studied them at university twenty years earlier. We talked for a while and I fell asleep.
Later I woke, opening my eyes very slowly, doing my best to orientate myself. I appeared to be in one of the bedrooms of the family home, although, again, it was unfamiliar to me. The contents of my bag were scattered around the bed, some items littering the sheet around my head. I could not recall what I had done to arrive here and wondered if I had been drunk. I looked under the bed and could see a bottle of perfume that I had obviously brought with me, but I noticed that it was much larger than I recalled it to be. I wondered if I was really awake or if I was still dreaming. As I looked around - at the room, at my belongings, and at my own body - I became increasingly convinced that none of this was real, that I was, in fact, still asleep and that this was part of a dream. I tried to wake up, but still I sat on the bed in a strange bedroom, surrounded by my things.