lickhaven

Why?

Because it’s time to send something out, but I have no coherent ideas on hand that aren’t political, and who wants to hear that shit right now?

This may be the most convoluted nest of dreams I’ve had in one night. It must have been during the Christmas holidays at my sister-in-law Ginny’s house some years back. (I never think to date my notes; I suppose I should, but that’s the least of my endlessly badgering worries about what I “should” be doing.) Ginny died a couple years ago. It’s now my daughter Morgan’s house.

Elements that likely entered into this dream clump:

• the novel I was reading about a murder trial, with overly detailed examinations of the minds of those involved, especially the accused, a 19-year-old, philosophically astute artist
• the sunlight in the bedroom at Ginny’s, the first sun in many days and a particular light we don’t get at home while in bed
• a talk with Ginny in which I learned that my last remaining cousin, Celeste, had died a month or so back, and my saying how blessed I was by the love and help of my elder brothers, both now dead, which lead me to realize that I, as the last of the siblings and cousins, was now “in charge” of that generation’s continuance
• cleaning my workshop the previous Thursday, sweeping the floor with a wide, inefficient broom before vacuuming
• my Christmas present to Linda, replacement of the doors to the lower cabinets in the main room, a last-minute blast that succeeded in a considered and competent way that’s unusual for my rapid-fire projects.

The first dream segment is vague, a group of people, indoors or moving between places, with young, intense relationships, no details retained.

Next, street and building renovations under a volunteer group along Lancaster Ave. and surrounding areas in Philly, none that I could identify with real places, clearing out dead parts of buildings, cutting street trees, rearranging the local reality as a civic project. I am a junior participant, then somewhat later part of the cleanup team, assigned or self-choosing to rake/broom bits of dead branch along front “yards” or concrete aprons?, alone, looking for help. I insist (to whom or what?) that someone join me. A composite creature comes, an owl-figure who leans on its broom but does nothing while I meticulously rake leaves and tree detritus into a tight pile, though I scold the figure, incensed. I go somewhere, come back and it is gone.

Hiatus. 

Going “home,” possibly from the previous setting, on a trolley, similar to the West Philly subway-surface trolley system, on underground tracks, with someone who changes – possibly sex, definitely attributes and relationship to me – as we travel. It wants to get off at the first stop downtown, east of the river. That stop has a name, not a cross-street number as it would in downtown Philly; I describe how to get there. I plan to exit myself at the last stop before the trolley tunnels under the river, which will most directly take me home (roughly Powelton Village), but somehow get off a stop earlier (roughly 32nd St.). The other passenger, now definitely male, possibly Black (I never see him clearly; he stands partly behind me) gets off with me.

Outside, we are in one of my elaborate dream warrens – tight, short streets converging at all angles, with buildings in various states of decay or renovation, all of reality being rearranged. I recognize this element, and announce it to him, as my dreamworld. For once I feel comfortable with it. This seems not a fully lucid dream, since it is both dreamed and real to me. We talk about what, from my angle, that is, how it works.

Unlike at Lancaster Ave., I am clearly in charge, explaining things to this somewhat important figure who would outrank me in a “real” situation. I suggest different directions to walk to see how to get out of the dream convolutions and find a straight road “home,” though that outlook seems less important than my finding it a duty and/or challenge. The sun is out and brilliant, a good day, one that invigorates me.

We walk into and through small buildings of various types, mostly indistinct (the light intense, but the details not in focus), all being worked on. We don’t talk to the workers. At the entrance to a small, Frank Furness-like museum being ripped apart, I say, “There’s always one of these,” meaning always a museum in my dream, always being reconstructed (in most of those dreams, the museum is based on a specific one, such as the University Museum at Penn, but that’s not so, here). Again, inside details are indistinct, the workers seem bemused by our intrusion.

The attempt to find the road out continues until we reach  a wide flow of water outside one building. The water runs between buildings, through sorts of courtyards. I see this as a pointer to the road out, which I envision as a clear, straight street. I jump in the water and am carried to a small waterfall and washed gently over. The sun is still shining, encouraging. The dream here dissolves into something I can’t recall; it was not important to reach the actual road out, but to find the pointer to it. 

During, slightly before, or possibly after the water interlude, I thank the male figure for collaborating with me on forming the dream, the whole creative process, making it fuller, telling him that my discussions with him (mostly my pontificating) had made the dreamlife and life in general richer, building on my collaborations with daughter Cait (not identified as such in the dream, but female and in retrospect obviously her).

This dream was a shining, active growth process, overt in its implications, not the kind of removed self I normally dream, which includes no discussions of “meaning.” It seemed to indicate a major shift in how I was looking at the world, one I hadn’t been conscious of. I can’t say what, if any, the after-effects were.