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.

road

Again, on a journey, trying to find a way through roads and paths, staying in homes that are not my own. I was walking along a busy road. There were lots of other people, also walking. Normally we would all be driving along such a road. In fact, it felt like we all travelled the road regularly, but on this day we were all out of our cars, individually, walking and running along the road. Suddenly, in front of us, there was a hill in the road: sharply steep on all sides although not very high. I was in the front so I was the first to encounter the obstacle. I stopped, and others soon stopped around me, trying to work out how to get over the hill and how we had never noticed it before when we were driving. One man ran at the hill and managed to scramble up to the top, but lost his balance and had to cling with his feet to a large potplant that appeared on top of the hill, whilst his body dangled upside-down, dangerously, over the road. Another man rushed to his aide, and somehow helped him up the hill. It seemed that only the extremely agile and strong would make it over the hill. I walked around the base of the hill one last time and there appeared a set of stairs, so obvious, that I wondered how I, or any of the other people, had not noticed them at once.

dancing

I was in a room with large mirrors along one wall – a dance rehearsal studio. I was wearing all white: white dance shoes and socks, white top and white lycra shorts. I was dancing and watching myself in the mirror. I liked how I looked as I was muscular, my legs powerful, and my skin was sunned and golden. I was twisting my legs and body around in wonderful movements, fluid and strong. Gravity seemed to support me, in fact, I was able to lean into the air and trust that it would hold me. I danced with gravity, playing with my weight against it, and I felt lovely.

apes

I was sitting in front of a machine, much like a soft drink vendor, that had a list of questions printed down the front of the machine with a button next to each question. I scanned the list and found a question about the bikeways in Brisbane. I pressed the button, wondering if it would work as I had not inserted any money, and immediately, the tray at the bottom of the machine began to fill with A4 sheets of paper, answering my question. Sheet after sheet slipped out of a shoot and landed in the growing pile of papers, making a soft flicking sound. I was somewhat alarmed at the size of the pile – at least one hundred sheets high.

I turned to look out the window which was on the wall facing the machine. Out the window I could see the tops of trees and, in particular, a tree quite close to the window that had a deep chocolate brown trunk that rose up to form a tulip shape at the top. It looked like a nest. I looked at the other treetops in view, scanning them to see if I could see any more nests. I wanted to tell someone about what I could see, but the people in the room were doing other things. Suddenly, an apish figure crawled out of the top of the trunk of the tree closest to the window, swung on an overhead branch toward the window, and then veered to its left, out of sight. It looked much like an orangutan but with deep brown and dark grey hair, and was about four feet tall. Three other apes emerged from the tree trunk in succession: a large female, a small baby, and finally, a huge male with grey hair, yellow eyes and yellow streaks of hair around his face. He looked directly in the window at me, paused for a moment before swinging away. I had the impression that he was summing me up, deciding whether or not to interact.

witch

B& I were lying in bed, snuggled under the quilt. B had been on the phone to an old woman who lived in Urunga. In my dream, Urunga was north of here, on the Queensland East Coast beyond Gympie. I knew that the woman was a witch. After the phone call, we waited and soon we heard the slow footsteps and the dull thud of her walking stick coming down the hall toward our room. She came into the room through a door to the right of the room and slowly walked around the base of the bed toward me, on the left-hand-side of the bed. I was scared. She eyed me and realised that I was not the one. She stared at B, turned, and walked back around the base of the bed and up to where she could easily see B. She had shrewd black eyes, a sharp nose, and she was wearing a black dress with black stockings and shoes—much like a grieving widow. She was of ill intent and was here because B had told her that another old woman, a healer, wanted to help B and had given her gifts. The witch wanted the gifts, perhaps to intercept the magic of the healer. She reached down and picked up the first gift, a large pot plant, which I identified as a Money Plant, and asked if she could have it. She then took the second gift, a bunch of long-stemmed yellow flowers wrapped in cellophane and asked if she could have those. We both felt that we couldn’t refuse her or something terrible would happen. We sat down to have green tea and water. I felt awkward and transparently wary of her, whereas B seemed at ease. I walked her to the door where she confronted me, laying a brittle hand on my arm, asked why I disliked her. I answered, saying something that I can’t quite recall, and her appearance changed, resembling the other old woman: the healer. She had long grey hair that hung around her shoulders, a strong face and a more solid body. She smiled at me, although I still felt distrustful, and she left, taking the plant and flowers with her. I went back to where we had been having tea and there was a large cake sitting on the low coffee table. I broke off a hunk of cake in my hand and ate it wolfishly. There was a large dog sitting looking at me and I offered him some cake. We both ate the cake, he biting off big chunks and swallowing them whole, and me, grabbing handfuls of cake and eating them as fast as I could. I told him he was a good dog and he looked at me, surprised and grateful.