Posts from — May 2007

(Male, middle-aged) I kept dreaming this dream all night though I woke up a half dozen times. The sense of outrage, of powerlessness still stick with me.

My sister in law came to stay with us for a little while because she was being stalked by one of her customers. The police knew everything about this guy including where he lived, what he did. My sister in law even was shown pictures of him. The stalker had been placed under house arrest and was given one of those electronic tethers, but he had escaped from them before. Furthermore, the stalker had even killed a couple other people — his previous stalking targets — but for the most part everyone was treating him like he was relatively harmless. Not entirely harmless — my sister in law was encouraged to leave town until he lost interest in her — but the stalker also had some kind of special skill or profession that made people overlook his “faults.” He was a surgeon or something, though I shudder to think of him operating on someone I love.

I felt pretty sure that I could protect her, even though I’m not strong or skilled with a weapon. I resolved that as soon as I saw the stalker, I would just have to kill him before he could take advantage of the situation. Somehow, just having that attitude was going to keep everyone safe. I figured I could kill him in a fight and no one would care.

One afternoon, my wife and her sister actually were gone shopping and I was at home with several people — our plan was to have lots of people awake and paying attention at all times so we wouldn’t be caught off guard. A couple of young children knocked on the door I went to the door but I knew it was him. I went out on the porch and closed the door behind me. I recognized him from his photos. He was very tall and very muscular and had short blond hair. When he turned to face me, he flicked a lit cigarette at my face.

“You’re a little jumpy,” He said.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

“So she’s here”

“You’re not supposed to be out of your house. Your cage.”

I yelled in the screen window for the others to call 911. We started to fight, to grapple, to wrestle. He was much stronger than me, much taller than me. I kept calling for 911. I don’t know if anyone did. My plan now was to keep him busy until the police arrived. He wrapped one arm around me, pinning my arms to my sides. With the thumb of his other hand, he started pushing on my teeth like he was trying to crack them off into my throat.

I awoke face down in my pillow.

I had been working outside side in sort of a garden. The plants seemed to have square leaves. The soil was very dry and dusty. There was this weird spider that I had been coming across all day, that had eight legs but otherwise looked more like a lizard. The lizard-spider was probably the size of my hand. It had orange skin with a large cream colored spot on its back. It moved around under the leaves. I had brought a strangely shaped glass bottle filled with something to drink as well as a glass cup that looked like it was from a punchbowl set. I poured myself a glass of whatever kind of liquid was in this bottle. But as I brought it up to my lips, I realized too late that the lizard-spider was in the glass. I swallowed part of the spider yet part of it still dangled outside of my mouth. I could feel its legs on my face and I was scared it was a poisonous spider that would bite me inside my own mouth.

A dusty basement room.

tables, chairs on their side.

alone, you climb confused stairs

getting nowhere

a song humming but not by you.

a sudden unseen touch.

(Male, middle aged) You know that song “Stuck in a Moment” by U2? I feel like they’re singing that right to me. I have what you could call a fear of regret. It’s almost paralyzing. Looking back on my life I have kept myself from trying so many things entirely because I’m afraid — terrified, actually — that I’ll regret it later. I’ve taken the bland, safe alternative at almost every opportunity, though it’s even hard to say that I’ve been active in choosing those alternatives. It’s more like I’ll stay in the status quo long enough until the opportunity closes. What’s weird is that I’ll often have very strong, very passionate ideas like for business endeavors but I’ll either smother them before I can act or if I can manage to act on them, I’ll let the projects wither before they can really disrupt my “normal” life. What’s up with that?

This guy, Dave Devries, takes the artwork of children and then paints realistic versions of the monsters they’ve envisioned. He’s published a book of the monsters and interviews with the children called Monster Engine: an experiment with children’s art. On the site is also a short movie where he demonstrates the process and describes some of his ambitions.

http://www.themonsterengine.com/openingpage.html

(Female, middle aged) This wasn’t a dream as much as a really powerful image. I mean, of course it was a dream; I just don’t remember a lot of other details from it. But it lasted a while, in dream time.

The frightening image was a slit of light along the horizon. The light was very far away, but it was coming closer all the time. It reminded me a little of that– what is it?– that flaming eye in Lord of the Rings that represents the rising evil presence, that all-knowing, all-seeing eye. This light was like that, coming closer slowly.

As it approached, I could see that there was something in it, something blurry, a dark line of some sort. As the light came nearer, I could see that the dark blur was actually text, like when you are having your eyes examined and the doctor shows you blocks of light with letters in them and wants you to read them aloud. In the light was writing. Except that this was longer, not just single letters, but probably words. There was something written there, a long sentence maybe from the amount of letters.

I squinted my eyes, trying to decipher the text, trying to make sense of it as the scary light came closer. Figuring it out was my only hope, but the text was too blurry. I couldn’t read it and the light was going to get me soon.

I’m not sure if the scariest part was the approaching light itself– I mean, after all, what was the light going to do to me? More frightening, I think, was the not-being-able-to-read part of the dream. I don’t know if my eyes were failing or what. Just that something important wasn’t working right.