Dream Log: January 18, 2002

I was in the bed I slept in as a kid. I was aware of Monika beside me. A cat was slashing at me violently under the covers. I was awoken by the cat attacking me and was confused. The dream kept doing close ups of this unseen cats exageratted claws while it went at me. I understood this cat to be orange. Eventually I got my bearings and began to fight off the cat but it was a struggle. Finally I got out of bed and was like what the fuck is going on I don't have a cat. I walked down the stairs of my parents old house were I grew up. I noticed a black Lamborghini in the driveway and saw my parents in the kitchen with two people. It was a still shot of the four of them. At some point in the dream, in a sort of hushed manner, the knowledge that the cats your fathers, he's depressed these days was spoken to me by mother or I realized it, I cant remeber which.

Lots of wild dreams last night. I remember waking up several times thinking "Whoa---I dreamed what?" and going into REM sleep between snoozes on the clock radio. Here's a reconstruction of one, based on some notes I scribbled about it in class this morning:

The girl I loved had been mutilated years before, at a very young age, because she was very beautiful and the ritual was an avenue towards her marrying well in the future, just as footbinding was at first done to only the prettiest commoner girls in China, to make them attractive by the standards of the court, for purposes of upward social mobility.

We were very young and very powerless and all I wanted was to heal her but she was to be married to someone much older and more powerful and there was nothing we could do. A sense of helplessness, futility, inevitability, and finality really pervaded the dream.

At the very end of the dream, I was to go away. It's not clear in my memory where I was going, or whether I would ever be coming back. In saying goodbye to the girl, I embraced her, very sadly, still wishing I could heal her old wounds, and kissed her once, very tenderly, on the forehead. She looked up into my eyes and someone female standing beside her exclaimed something in surprise. At this moment, the girl in my arms realized I loved her, and that she loved me. But I was going away, and she was to be married, and there was nothing we could do.

The last image I remember of the dream is from the girl and her companion's point of view, watching me walk away. I have long hair and am dressed in loosefitting black clothes. It is not clear whether I am male or female.

It is the androgyny, the gender-neutrality of the person whose point of view was mine for so much of the dream that intrigues me after the fact, writing this. On the one hand, it would be easy to interpret my dreamself as male, in some way heroically in love (maybe even courtly love) with this girl, wanting to help her. Yet my love came as such a surprise, and the fact that the girl was to marry an older man, suggests that perhaps my dreamself was female in a heterosexually oriented society. Of course, there could be other reasons why our love was so shocking to a bystander, but since I woke up with the guestion of gender on my mind, it is what captured my imagination.

I was a this huge PNE type display, not a display, but more like a rodeo. There were lots of people, and in the dirt below the stands are lots of boy scouts. I have no idea why I'm there, but I think I'm trying to solve a crime of some sort. My old scout leader and father of my friend (Darcy D's) tells me that I'm going to be speaking. I guess he had told me before and I hadn't believed him, because this time it rings true, and I am very much against it. "I don't mind public speaking so much," I tell him, and huge stretch of the truth, "but I don't like speaking in front of such huge crowds."

Somehow I guess I'm roped in and end up trying to get a pencil and paper to start writing my speech, which starts with (and I remember clearly) talking about how scouts really started with going to Beavers, where the motto is "Do Your Best." Amidst trying to find paper that isn't full of writing already (I have to erase several lines of writing from the paper I find) and that I can write on (at least one won't let me write on it) I find one and start my speech. Of course about then my other role in the dream kicks in, that of detective. I'm chasing someone, who did something, or trying to figure out who did what. One of the people is someone who looks a lot like Lucy Liu, and I try to trip her up by confusing her, "So the juice cans, I mean payoffs...." etc.

Luckily I was woken up by a phone ringing before I had to go and do any speaking.

I walk into the bathroom, in the middle of the day. No one is home. My mom is at work. My step dad is at work or off at one of his sister’s houses or something. My siblings are at school. I should be alone.

There’s a man standing in the bathroom. I jump at the site of this large man standing in my bathroom when no one should be home. I try to get to the phone. He grabs my arm. It hurts. His hands are big and strong. In a husky voice he says, “I saw you sucking your thumb. I’ll give you something to suck.”

Next thing I know I’m on my knees in the bathroom with him pushing the back of my head in toward his crotch. He sticks his penis in my mouth. I gag. He pushes himself farther in my mouth. I don’t know what else to do so I bite down as hard as I can. He grabs my hair and yanks so hard a handful comes out in his hand. “You’ll pay for that!”

Suddenly we’re in my bedroom. He forces me onto the bed and starts to pull my jeans off of me. He pulls my shirt off and my bra while already forcing himself into me. It feels so real…it hurts so much. He begins to thrust himself into me, deeper and deeper. Tears roll down my face. I try to scream but no sound comes out. I try to escape but I cannot move. He’s so heavy and big. I have no chance. He’s going to kill me…

He doesn’t do his crime in silence. He speaks to me in between heavy breaths, his voice now more husky than ever. “I’ll make it look like you killed yourself. They’ll believe it. You psycho bitch.”

He fondles my breasts, squeezing so hard I cannot breath. “Stop your crying! This is your own fault! You brought this on yourself!”

He continues for what seems like forever. “I love virgins, so tight. You know you like it.” Thrusting so hard…so deep. His heavy weight on my weak little body. “Bitch will have to pay for your crimes. You’ll pay. I’ll make you pay!”

It’s never going to end. It’s never going to end. The monster will destroy me, he’ll destroy the little that’s left that once was me. Thrusting up and down. The headboard hits the wall with every thrust. My head his the headboard each and every time. “Crazy bitch needs to pay.” “I’ll make you pay!” He thrusts even harder. I lose consciousness.

I open my eyes, having no idea how much time has passed. He’s no longer on top of me. I think he’s gone. I think it’s finally over. I try to sit up. My head hurts too much. I lift my hand to my head. I’m so sore that this takes almost all my energy to do. I feel blood. I look at my hand, blood sticky hair is stuck to my fingers.

I look around the room. If I can just get to the phone… I try to get off the bed, just four steps and I could touch the phone. I fall onto the floor in a little ball. I can’t do it. I’m too weak. My whole body shakes.

Suddenly I hear a sound. Footsteps. Oh God help me!

That husky voice, no longer gasping for breathe with each word. “Get your ass off the floor you lazy useless bitch! I’ll kill you!” I’m paralyzed with fear. He comes closer, bends down and grabs me like a rag doll, throwing me against the wall my bed is alongside. I can’t breathe. I’m going to die.

He has a Xacto knife in his hand. If he just leaves and leaves that here I can deaden the pain. I can make the pain and poison get out… “Hey psycho! You enjoy cutting yourself do you? Let’s play slave and master.” He takes hold of my arm and makes one long gash from just below my elbow down my arm, stopping only an inch and a half from my wrist. “You like that!? You like to watch yourself bleed!?” I’m too weak to respond. All I can do is lay there and watch, and hope to die. “How about your legs? Let’s add a few marks on your road map of insanity!” I can’t feel any pain now, I only feel blood as it begins move slowly down my legs and into small puddles on my bed. Poison leaving my body. Death rescue me soon. Death rescue me… He proceeds to slice my skin—my arms, my legs, my stomach, my breasts, until I finally pass out from lack of blood.

---

And then I wake up, in my own bed, and nothing has happened. No cuts all over my body, no blood in my hair. It was all a dream. Just a dream. But why and how do I feel that pain? Why do I feel like I’ve been invaded? Why do I feel sore like I’ve been thrown at a wall? It was only a dream…why do these dreams feel so real? *Sigh*

I dreamt I was at some place I called my home (I've never been here before!) A ghost appeared to me: a big tall man, once strong, now of the sickly appearance of a shade. I was slightly scared.

There was something about the bathtub. Was Jane lying in it? Unconscious? I don't remember.

After I knew I had enough evidence to "prove" the existence of the ghost I called for help. I think there were people I knew upstairs and also some policemen.

We were walking down the stairs. Ah, now it was Jane in the bathtub; it had been the ghost before. I dragged her out of the tub.

We knew the ghost was up near the ceiling somewhere behind a very old-fashioned fuse box.

As I had proof (don't ask me how you prove the existence of a ghost - whatever - I had proof) so the others believed me and we started discussing and arguing about our course of action. Meanwhile the ghost was writhing on the floor trying to get our attention. Like a small child. I told him: "Oh, stop that!"

He pointed at his chin and his forehead. He looked fairly sick. We continued discussing until it suddenly occurred to us that since he was trying to tell us something, maybe we should listen to him.

Somehow he made it clear to us that he had been shot in his chin and forehead and had then been left to "starve" to death. He'd been left where he "lives" now. We'd probably find his skeleton some time...

He wants us to find the "offspring" of the one(s) who had done this to him, and inform them about their forefather(s)' deeds.

When I suggested telling his offspring too, the others laughed at first: since he was dead, how could he have any relations? (I don't remember how this premature conclusion was resolved.)

We discussed some more and finally agreed on helping him.

While we'd been discussing he had become more and more substantial and less sick looking. He was actually fairly handsome. (At one point he also remarked on his fate; something along the lines of: "Here I am such a handsome man, yet I was killed and am now a ghost.")

It's agreed that since I'd found him I was going to be the leader. They all shook hands with him. But me - he kissed me on the cheek. At this moment everything around me froze and I was so scared. I felt all his coldness and his fear.

I woke up at this moment. But the fear lingered. I was very scared. Somehow the last part of this dream was very strong...

I had another dream that night - it followed the ghost dream. The atmosphere was fairly similar, but I remember less detail.

I had done (or not done) something wrong in some sort of secret society and it was decided that I had to die. Something about jumping from cliffs or mountains. Some kind of ritual killing in which I had to go in my own free will.

They showed me the maps (scale 1:25'000) of the area and showed me the path I had to follow and where it was supposed to happen. The path was exactly on the edge of two maps, so they needed both maps to show me. I played along with it all the time. But I wasn't resigned to my death. I was definitely planning to live on. Also I wasn't panicky. I was slightly scared, but all in all very coolheaded.

I didn't have to find out how I could escape because sometime on our walk through the woods with me desperately trying to come up with a plan for escaping, I woke up...