Dreamlife

  In the dream, I see my colleague Az—– poring over a book with
one of her students. It is a thick tome in Latin illustrated with
engravings. I am incensed because I sense the student covets it even
though he is also afraid of it and is trying to get her to close it
quickly.
  Then I see Az—– again downstairs, in a place that resembles
my home much more than it does Hall Hagardie. I speak to her but she
doesn’t understand my language. On the other hand, I understand her
perfectly when someone arrives to discuss a lawsuit they’re planning
together. As far as I recall, this is one of my few dreams to feature
words rather than just images and impressions.

  Three sequences in one night but only very fleeting
recollections of each. Noting them in case something jogs my memory or
they become significant in light of later dreams.
1) My grandfather (defunct in waking life) is dying and my family is
making preparations, trying to ease his transition. My contribution is
bringing my blue lamp over to his bedside and shining it on him.
2) There is a girl in distress and an older man trying to console or
orient her. She doesn’t know him but I divulge his identity to her–I
think he’s the president of a university–and somehow this foils
whatever he was trying to do, making him upset at me.
3) I’m at an establishment that has the feel of a bar but actually only
offers electronic services. I’m looking for a young woman with whom I
share a computer account where we have stored some information I need.
Something about the timing for using that information is delicate and
precise.

  An exceptional dream in
several respects. The protagonist is a woman with very little doubt or
hesitation. She arrives in an unfamiliar city and takes the subway to
an unfamiliar house, where she’s expected. There she crosses words with
an older woman, who is covertly but not subtly hostile. I don’t recall
the content of their conversation. The older lady leaves and my
surrogate realizes she’s been locked in and can’t leave the house so
she begins to explore it. She passes from one area of the house to
another and jams the door behind her. Opening another door leads to a
lofty stairwell, which she ascends. At the top is a beautiful man, or,
rather he isn’t there. There is the presence of a beautiful man but not
as a physical presence. Perhaps it is a formula she understands, his
genetic blueprint or something else altogether. There are closed doors
at either side but she ignores these. She studies him carefully, then
leaps decisively into the space where he is not and experiences waves
of sexual pleasure. As she falls to the floor, she thinks she has
accomplished very much and very little. She raises herself slightly on
her arms without standing up and remains motionless for a while, her
mind entirely rapt in a pair of his individual cells.
  Even while dreaming, the
incomprehensibility of this dream chafed at me. Not the illogical
symbolism that’s par for the dreamer’s course but running up against
something that couldn’t be represented visually. In fact, I was so
insistent that my mind replayed that part at the top of the stairwell
for me but the results were identical: everything transpired as before,
no visual form of the man could be found.