Dreamlife

  In the dream, I find a book
of the Ice Queen’s (whether a book she authored or a book that belonged
to her, I don’t know) listed in a catalog. I consider mail ordering it
but worry that she will learn of it and… and what? At any rate, I
decide to go to the book dealer who’s listed it, wherever that is, and
purchase it (with cash, undoubtedly). The place I enter doesn’t look
exactly like a bookdealer. It could be a shop, a bar, a residence, with
spacious but nearly empty rooms with wooden paneling. But there is a
man behind a desk whom I ask for the IQ’s book. For reasons I don’t
recall, he is apprehensive about providing it and tells me I will have
to wait some time. I resign myself to this and wander off to one of the
rear rooms, which leads to another and another. I pass some rather
banal looking people in suits who are in the middle of a conversation.
I don’t intend to stop but another person, sitting to their side seems
familiar and this catches my attention. He recognises me before I
recognise him–it’s Dr. Joel R., my feckless high school philosophy
teacher. He greets me warmly (this is continuous with the previous
night’s dream, which I’ll have to transcribe since it looks like the
beginning of a trend) and fills me in on the banal details of his life:
he’s working somewhere in Europe and visiting somewhere far from
wherever we are now (so I can’t explain how I ended up bumping into
him).
  I don’t recall if I ever get the IQ’s book. Perhaps I awaken before I do.

  In the dream, it’s night
time and I’m sharing a room with Hector (perhaps during one of our
yearly pilgrimages, like the one we made last week in waking life).
Although we seem to have already retired for the night, I am up and
about, trying to assemble something in the darkness, kneeling or
squatting beside a wall. Without leaving his bed, Hector is calling out
suggestions. All in vain–whatever it is I’m trying to fashion keeps
falling apart in my hands. I give up and open the curtains of our
window. It doesn’t look out on an urban landscape. Rather, it seems to
be at the top of the sloping walls of a valley, from which packets of
light ascend into the air. “How high that highest candle lights the
darkness.” And then, someone we recognise in the dream emerges along
with the lights but I have no recollection of his identity or
significance.

  In the dream, I see my colleague Az—– poring over a book with
one of her students. It is a thick tome in Latin illustrated with
engravings. I am incensed because I sense the student covets it even
though he is also afraid of it and is trying to get her to close it
quickly.
  Then I see Az—– again downstairs, in a place that resembles
my home much more than it does Hall Hagardie. I speak to her but she
doesn’t understand my language. On the other hand, I understand her
perfectly when someone arrives to discuss a lawsuit they’re planning
together. As far as I recall, this is one of my few dreams to feature
words rather than just images and impressions.

  Three sequences in one night but only very fleeting
recollections of each. Noting them in case something jogs my memory or
they become significant in light of later dreams.
1) My grandfather (defunct in waking life) is dying and my family is
making preparations, trying to ease his transition. My contribution is
bringing my blue lamp over to his bedside and shining it on him.
2) There is a girl in distress and an older man trying to console or
orient her. She doesn’t know him but I divulge his identity to her–I
think he’s the president of a university–and somehow this foils
whatever he was trying to do, making him upset at me.
3) I’m at an establishment that has the feel of a bar but actually only
offers electronic services. I’m looking for a young woman with whom I
share a computer account where we have stored some information I need.
Something about the timing for using that information is delicate and
precise.

  An exceptional dream in
several respects. The protagonist is a woman with very little doubt or
hesitation. She arrives in an unfamiliar city and takes the subway to
an unfamiliar house, where she’s expected. There she crosses words with
an older woman, who is covertly but not subtly hostile. I don’t recall
the content of their conversation. The older lady leaves and my
surrogate realizes she’s been locked in and can’t leave the house so
she begins to explore it. She passes from one area of the house to
another and jams the door behind her. Opening another door leads to a
lofty stairwell, which she ascends. At the top is a beautiful man, or,
rather he isn’t there. There is the presence of a beautiful man but not
as a physical presence. Perhaps it is a formula she understands, his
genetic blueprint or something else altogether. There are closed doors
at either side but she ignores these. She studies him carefully, then
leaps decisively into the space where he is not and experiences waves
of sexual pleasure. As she falls to the floor, she thinks she has
accomplished very much and very little. She raises herself slightly on
her arms without standing up and remains motionless for a while, her
mind entirely rapt in a pair of his individual cells.
  Even while dreaming, the
incomprehensibility of this dream chafed at me. Not the illogical
symbolism that’s par for the dreamer’s course but running up against
something that couldn’t be represented visually. In fact, I was so
insistent that my mind replayed that part at the top of the stairwell
for me but the results were identical: everything transpired as before,
no visual form of the man could be found.

  I go to my friend J.’s
apartment and learn that my cantankerous cat Fluffy (deceased in waking
life) ripped out his throat. I ponder the imprudence of his getting too
close when he petted her. I plan to send his dad my condolences and
wonder how to dispose of his belongings. I am also curious to read his
work; he was writing on something that intrigues me but my waking
memory has suppressed what that might be. Fortunately, J.’s ghost shows
up in very good spirits to offer post-mortem guidance.

  A very brief dream. I am not
the protagonist but I have access to his thoughts and perhaps see
through his eyes. He arrives at a city where he is to observe a major
public event. However, it is late and he is turned away when he tries
to enter the facility where it will take place. So, he leaves with the
intent of returning in the morning and goes to seek lodgings. He enters
an anteroom that looks more like an office for some public service than
a hotel. The middle aged man behind the counter asks him to fill out a
checkin form. He hesitates when it comes to filling out his age and
writes that he is 21 or 22. I don’t know what age he actually is but I
sense he is mistating it. He hands the form to the attendant, who scans
it and looks up with a leering expression. “Is that so?,” asks the
latter. His eyes narrow and he looks at not-me intently. Not-me doesn’t
answer; he begins to feel the suggestion of a malaise and then suddenly
a rush of ice-cold air emanating from the direction of the attendant
seems to pass through his body. I awaken.

In this dream, I’m at a campus
reminiscent of The Farm, only the mountains surrounding it are a good
deal vaster than the foothills. I go up into the mountains to read; I
find there that I can empathize very powerfully with the authors I’m
reading. There’s a plateau from which I observe the goings-on below and
where I rendezvous with my love, who in this dream is MV.
  Later on, I’m visiting an unfamiliar city. I have an extended
discussion with two locals, a man and a woman, about some texts. My
travel companion won’t get out of bed.

  What a varied night! First,
I was threatened by black magic and found I didn’t have my Teutonic
cross to ward it off. (I had, in waking life, forgotten to put it back
on after bathing.) Then I went to look for food. The shop I entered was
abandoned, with no people and only scattered items on its shelves. At
the end I left with a piece of bread and sat down to eat with someone I
saw exactly once at a party in waking life some five years ago.
Finally, as though I were a child again, I was off on a school field
trip to a stately building in New York City. What the purpose of the
trip or the building was, I can’t say. There were quite a few rooms and
in many of them people seemed to be waiting for something to begin but
nothing did.

  In the dream, I am in class
with Steven A., the effeminate analytic professor who taught my Emerson
seminar the year before last. Or, rather, he and I are in a small room
adjacent to the one where the class is being held. I read him a poem
(Rilke, I think) I have in a folder. I guess he approves of it, because
he tells me to go out and read it to the class. He goes ahead of me. I
intend to go in and read the poem, but when I look for the poem in the
folder, I can no longer find it. It seems to be full of landscapes
instead. Minutes seem to pass while I rifle through the folder. Then I
hear my voice reciting the poem from next door: S.A. has decided to
play a recording.
  Then I’m walking through a
swimming pool that stretches indefinitely ahead. My feet are following
an underwater path. However, I reach the end of the path and my head is
nearly submerged. I look around and am relieved to see an egress from
the pool not too far away. (In waking life, I can swim adequately but
in the dream it doesn’t occur to me that I can do anything but walk.) I
emerge from the pool and make my way to some apartments nearby. I don’t
reside there, although it seems to me I know someone who does. I enter
an apartment that is clearly inhabited although no one is there at the
moment and begin to remove my soaked clothing. I am surprised that the
body–specifically, the dark, muscular legs–I see in the mirror are
not recognizable as my own.