Secret Place

Down a grassy track and under a tree I had a secret place. It had a hammock and a bamboo fence, and it was always the spring-time. Chris Chavis and Tara Thomas came to visit me there.

Gay?

I was in Mancos in the yard, trying to take the lid off of the compost heap to see if Brad had finally sealed it up to cook or not. The lid had been changed. It looked like an accordian now and it slipped off too easily. I looked in at the dried-out food.

I turned around and saw a beautiful man standing near the front porch across the yard from me. I walked toward him and wanted to stop and talk, but he was somehow busy, and I knew I would have to wait. He looked at me in an intense way, and I knew we were going to have a really intimate conversation soon. I wanted to know if he was gay, because I thought he might be, and I was really attracted to him. I hoped he wasn't.

Then we were at a soccer camp for boys. He lined up with all his bunk-mates, and I hid behind some bushes watching. I knew I wasn't supposed to be there, but I still needed to talk to him. I saw one of the other campers walk by, and he seemed gay to me. I spoke to him and told him that my gaydar was going off at the rate of 100%. He kept going into the bunkhouse. The halls were long and windy.

Nuclear War!

A nuclear explosion was about to take place. I was the only one who knew about it, and I knew down to the second when the explosion would happen and what it would look like. With a few minutes left to go, I got in the car to go where my family was. But something didn't feel right about that decision. I watched a second hand sweeping around a clock face and with ten seconds left to go, I turned around to find Michael. I knew that if I didn't find him right then, he'd be lost to me in the aftermath, but that I would always be able to find my family. I felt very relieved. I made it back to a dark room where he was standing. Then the explosion happened exactly like I knew it would. The sky flashed black and the whole world shook. All the people fell down and passed out at the same time. When we woke up, the sky was still dark. I started planning what to do. I knew we needed to get out of the city because the food would run out and people would eat each other. I wanted to go to the mountains.

Long night

I was returning to a what used to be my house--a project I had started building with my new boyfriend. I lay on my stomach on a grassy ridge looking down at it, but it was very different from when I had left it. It had turned into a vast cavern with stalactites that stretched hundreds of feet from the cavern ceiling to the stone floor. The cavern was as large as the entire cliff face--it could be seen for miles. I was amazed that something I had been working on had turned into this, and I had a litle vertigo laying there, hoping I wouldn't roll off the edge and fall in.
I didn't want to go near it--it was just too big.

Next I was talking on the phone to an advisee with whom I had an appointment that afternoon. I asked her if she would like to meet me at a restaurant downtown instead of in my office. She was an an older student. She said she would, but I could tell she was hesitant about driving herself, so I told her I'd pick her up.

I was sitting at a long conference table in the restaurant with a book open in front of me. It was thick like a Bible and it was about Hobbits. It was a book club meeting, apparently, and a man at the lecturn to my left came over to look at my copy. He was trying to direct everyone to a particular passage, and he wanted to consult my table of contents. I showed him that I had an edition without page numbers or a table of contents and he made some remark to the audience as he went back to the lecturn.

I was sitting around a camp fire with a family--a father and his three daughters. We were sitting on lawn chairs. The older sister said something to me about how the youngest sister didn't shave her legs. I told her that was just fine, that I hadn't shaved for years. I kept looking at the youngest daughter, and I couldn't tell why something seemed a little off. Finally, I realized it was because she didn't have a shirt on, but she had already developed breasts. They were very muscular, upright and hard, and she continually stretched her arms back over head showing off her arm muscles. Her father had his arm around her.

Some man was kissing me. He turned into Michael. He tried to kiss my ears, but it was completely unsexy and just gross. I hit him and made him leave.

Work/Lust

I was at work which was in a huge old house. I was upstairs in my office--a room with high ceilings that took up the entire upper story. There was a bed with rumpled blankets and sheets, and I was sitting on the edge of it naked. One of the work study students came in, and I asked her please to help me put on my bra and panties. I knew all my advisees were on the way to the room, and as they were coming in the door, I told her to hurry. I didn't have my body; I was very straight and narrow. I stood up and saw myself from outside of myself. I was wearing a black bra and cut off jeans. I didn't look like me.

The room began to fill up with my advisees--young, college-aged men. They were coming over to talk to me. I sat on the edge of the bed and we slapped hands in greeting. They clustered around me, asking about how to drop College Algebra and talking about snowboarding to each other.

My supervisor, Jennifer, came over with a worried expression on her face (fairly true to life) and told me I should go now.

I went out into the street and there was a festival. I wandered from venue to venue looking for good music and happy people. I wanted to be a part of a fun scene, but I felt outside of things and awkward.

I ended up at some club, and there was a bed I was leaning up against. Brandon was there and I was so glad to see him because I knew we would have sex. I wanted him so bad, and I hoped that he wanted me. We kissed and hugged and I sat on his lap until he pushed me away. I was sad that we weren't having sex. He didn't really explain why, didn't open his mouth. I could see in his expression that it wasn't going to happen. His look was cautious and haughty and amused all at once.

There was another man there who was also big and sexy, and I turned to him instead.

Then I was walking out onto the dance floor of one of the venues with a tall, fat man with dark skin and black hair. I realized everyone else was hanging back, so I veered to the side, but the man I was with kept approaching the stage. I sat down on a folding chair along the side of the room to see what he would do. He pointed at the band as though he were going to direct them. They were an all-male band with guitars and drums and suits on. At what the man thought was the climax of the song, he dramatically pointed at them with both arms, and the band suddenly disappeared behind two barn doors. But his timing was off, so the song was actually coming to a climax behind the doors. Everyone laughed at him, but sympathetically.

There is more about me being sick, but outside at the festival, going back to work to the big house, climbing the stairs, worrying that someone would see me and ask why I was at work if I was sick.

This is not part of the dream, but it feels like a thought that may have structured this dream. Last night I was talking to June about how I have never been able to picture what my wedding would like. I try to see myself standing up front somewhere in a dress, holding flowers, facing a man, but the woman I picture doesn't have my face--it's always just sort of a blank thing, or maybe someone else. She doesn't have my hair either. And I just can't see my head on that body as hard as I try.

Indian Nations

I was in a basement of a house talking on the phone to Iyla. Suddenly Katie and Doug appeared. I reminded Doug that his first speech as president of some Indian nation was this afternoon. He panicked and ran up the stairs. I told Iyla I had to go and ran after Doug. I knew he was going to get a migraine, and I wanted to make sure he remembered to take steps to avoid it. When I caught up, he was laying on the floor under a blanket. He said he had dilated his eyes as I recommended and was feeling OK. His pupils were really big, and he looked a little wild.

I was also the new president of an Indian nation. I traveled around a small town on foot, sometimes getting short rides here and there. I saw my extended family, and they were wondering about some strange woven leather basket they had found in the family archives. It was long and narrow and had an ill-fitting lid. Someone put it on a high table, and we looked at it and speculated what it was meant to hold. Someone thought watermelons.

I was in an elevator with many other people. One man said, "Everyone who is one of my prisoners, get up against the walls." Everyone but me moved to the walls while I stood in the middle. Thinking I had mistakenly ridden an elevator that was reserved for prisoner-transport, I said, "I'm sorry, I'll just get out now." Then one of the prisoners who looked like some old friend told me to stand up against the wall with everyone else and cooperate, that they didn't know what was going on either. Later I was out in the hall and I saw the man who had asked if we were his prisoners. I went up to him and told him he had embarrassed me and that he should apologize. I walked away before he said anything.