Category: Denise

(Sunday, January 4, 2014)

Dream 1 is a waking dream: The week after I throw a big hissy-fit (Bonnie’s word!) at T’ai-Chi I end up being the only student in class. I still feel ashamed and uncomfortable with Rob. I want to stand at the very back of the huge room but there is a distinctive presence in the middle of the space which will not allow me to back up any further. Whenever I get close to the presence/energy, I feel like I am bumping into a big, soft wall that reaches floor-to-ceiling and across the width of the room. My vision “whites out” and my hearing dims until I move forward, closer to Rob. The experience is so palpable and strange I consider asking him about it.

Dream 2: I go to bed after my friend Anne’s New Year’s Eve party. I am staying in her guest room at the back of her 1890s era Highland Park mansion. The room is in a dark corridor next to a steep old staircase that goes all the way to the basement. I have a brief dream of many spirits moving happily up the stairs to greet me. It has been years since there has been anyone in the house that could “see” them. To me, they don’t seem as though they are from the past. They seem more like Anne’s intelligent and warm friends from the party. One looks exactly like Anne’s kind dark-haired friend named Lynne. But they are, in fact, the former (and present!) residents of the house.

Dream 3: I have a chaotic dream the night before I leave Chicago (Saturday morning). All of the house spirits are in my room. There is much dream activity that I have forgotten. My main memory is of the spirit that looks like Lynne sitting close to me on the bed, on my left side. She holds my hands and our fingers are tightly entwined, as if in prayer. Strong jolts of electricity are shaking my body. It’s the same kind of electricity I sometimes experience as I fall asleep. Lynne feels very real, not at all like a spook.

(Thursday, December 18, 2014) Moon: waning crescent in Scorpio / Tarot: eight of swords

Chris and I are living in the end unit of a one-story motel, next to the office. I walk down the cement sidewalk and look into the open door of our apartment. There is a comfy earth-colored canvas sofa against the back wall piled with fringed, ochre-colored pillows.

We have outgrown this small place. I decide to begin our search for a new home. Suddenly I am flying alone through a grey, empty field. I don’t know which direction is up, which direction is down. I don’t know if I have flown a few hundred feet, or a few million light years. The physical disorientation fills my stomach with heaviness and a bit of fear.

I make a conscious effort to channel my anxiety and the grey gives way to a clear blue sky. I look down to see a new neighborhood under construction in a countryside with rolling hills but no trees. The roads are plowed, red earth. The homes are handsome and of a generous size, but it doesn’t feel like the right place for me, for us, to settle. Too conventional.

I turn back, eventually landing on the main street of an old Victorian-style town full of brick buildings with fanciful decorations. The streets are of freshly turned red earth, soft underfoot. Aromatic.

My daughter walks up to tell me she has put an egg-roll in the oven and it will be ready in 30 minutes.

I continue to explore the town, coming upon a fantastic street of giant, painted metal sculptures several stories tall. They are delightfully playful and eccentric. Like Dr. Seuss.

Day notes:

Bun in the oven? Someone is pregnant, due in 6 months?

(Wednesday, December 17, 2014) Moon: waning crescent in Libra / Tarot: four of swords

Three dreams, all in the same night, with walls as a unifying element.

Dream 1 (marble walls, wall cloud): I am driving in my car. I see a white tornado coming toward me from the west, my left. The funnel is tightly spinning in a narrow spiral. Almost needle-like. I pull into the parking lot of a community shelter (reminiscent of the old air raid shelters of my childhood), a modern white marble building a few stories tall. Walking across the lot is very difficult. The compression of the vortex is indicative of a wide and powerful storm, the force of which feels like ocean-deep gravity. I can barely lift my legs and feet. The pressure on my entire body is immense. Finally I make it up the white stone staircase into the building and rush about, trying to find a space far away from the huge windows. I can find no shelter from the windows and start to panic. A group of people in the building (all dressed in white) try to calm me. They explain that the windows are made, not of plate glass, but of quartz crystal. I am safe. The building is serene and beautiful.

Dream 2 (attic wall, wallpaper): I am in my grandmother’s attic. Even in my dream, I understand this means I am in a sacred space, the place of the ancestors. I am lying on a single mattress next to the outer wall of the attic, near the eaves, wearing a thin nightgown and covered by a small, light blanket. My bare breasts tumble out of my nightgown. I lie on my right side, turned away from the wall. The bottom of my left foot touches the delicate old wallpaper, caressing it lovingly, as I gaze into the center of the space. Brilliant light is shining into the room, which appears to have no wall opposite me, no boundary. A tall angel is coming toward me with my young sister, holding her protectively by her shoulders.

Dream 3 (wall demolition, white tile): I enter my childhood home through the side door. The kitchen is undergoing demolition, remodeling. An earlier tile wall made of white ceramic (porcelain?) has been uncovered.