Born in a Cave is a painting that depicts many of my dreams from last summer. It is based on an icon from Mt. Sinai which showed the birth and early life of Christ. I liked how its landscape could contain many scenes from different times, unifying them.

The Scholar's Club and the Noble Tiger
April 20, 2007

My husband Hank and I are walking around a town--mainly a residential area with interesting older houses. At one point I descend some extremely steep stone steps; I must be extremely careful or I could pitch forward and fall and injure myself.

At last we return to a house where we are staying. A conference of some kind is going on. We go through the house, into the garden, then into an open room at the back of the garden. At a table inside are seated three women whom we know--Agathe, Tricia Graeme (?), Leslie Simon (?). They are seated around a table, each with a book. Agathe is smoking a slim cigarette. She puts it down by her side when she sees us.

"It's the Scholars' Club!" I say--referring to the books they are reading. They also have plates and bowls of food--balls of mashed potato, little crispy chicken pieces. Having meals and being fed is part of the conference. They offer food to us. I say "Will there be some later?" They say "We don't know if it will last." I figure Hank and I had better eat now, even though we are not really hungry.

Joining "The Scholars' Club" looks very appealing but I say that Hank and I have been enjoying our walk around. They talk about their reading and refer several times to "The Noble Tiger" who is the subject of their discussion and research. He is evidently some well known Indian figure--in literature or politics.

The Retirement Ritual
June 7, 2007

I am at a gathering and ritual for my retirement from City College, held in a darkened hall or room. I'm presented with a bunch of long-stemmed flowers--orchid-like, in three or four colors ranging from white through violet.

I take the flowers and begin to lay them out in symmetrical mandala on a surface about 3 feet above the floor. I start to describe what I am doing. My friend begins to speak about some aspect of the process, but I think she might go on and on, so I cut her off and continue what I want to say: "Given the same materials, any other person would do with them something unique to that person." This has something to do with art and teaching.

I feel badly about having cut my friend off, and want to speak to her afterwards and apologize. She has been at least partly responsible for arranging this commemoration.

It is a strange event--not much is actually said, though there is more to the ceremony that I don't remember.

First Steps
June 15, 2007

I am hanging out with a group of friends. One of them has a baby girl who is still in the crawling stage but is very close to walking. As I watch, I see her hold onto her diaper and rubber pants and somehow use them for support as she takes some steps. I call to her mom "Look! _____ is walking!" She is bent over as she walks; it is as if she is ducking beneath something.

Running and Whooping
July 15, 2007

I am outdoors on rolling green hills where a large gathering is taking place. A young person is asking me to tell them about the current state of psychedelic use. I tell this person "I am not really in the know about this." This person is lying on the ground and I am administering some kind of drug or psychedelic through a tube that goes into his/her body in pulses as I press on a sort of valve. I am close to the person's face and see changes in his/her eyes.

Then a young man (same person? or someone different?) and I are running over the grassy hills and whooping. I can see the slightly coarse texture of the grass very clearly. I say to him "This actually has a very psychedelic quality for me." Saying this and realizing this, we speed up and begin to run so, so fast, whooping over the hills.

Dream of the Pregnant Daughter
August 9, 2007

We are staying with some neighbors at a place they have rented. It's the last day and they will be leaving in the night or early morning. We will leave after them. They are waiting for their oldest daughter, Noemi, to arrive. The dad is a bit worried because she had phoned when she left her home but hasn't arrived yet.

Then Noemi appears. She is tall and blonde, a bit horsey looking. We meet--I'm not sure if we'd met before. Then our neighbors leave us there with Noemi. She show us a 2-piece dress she has bought--it's a green or blue-green rayonny material. She spreads it out on a bed and says "It cost as much as a whole year's salary of a girl who works as a clerk at a store." I think or say "That's excessive." She puts it on--she is in the early stages of pregnancy so her stomach protrudes a bit. She is looking for some clothes of hers that were laundered, asking us "Have you moved them?" I know I haven't, but look around and find them for her. Then I start to ask her "When we leave, should we take the sheets off our bed and put them somewhere, or leave them on the bed?" She stops me and indicates I should wait until after some loud music has stopped playing--she wants to hear this song, so I wait.

--Jenny Badger Sultan

EDITOR'S NOTE

Dreams are often so compelling that dreamers get riveted to the moment. Anyone who's tried to learn lucid dreaming knows it's hard even to notice you're dreaming. It's even harder, I think, to step back and look at series of dreams and find recurring themes. Yet that's a vital part of dreamwork; for when learning any language, it's repetition and variation that teach meaning! Dreams explain each other.

But how do you get an overview, see the connections? You can obsessively reread your dream-journal I guess, but you risk falling back into the dream-trance, swallowed by detail. How can you pull back and map dreams from the same period, or a series of related dreams?

This isn't a problem just for dreamworkers seeking personal insights. Artists trying to portray dreams meaningfully also need to show links and contrasts between dreams. How to capture dream-series?

Jenny's paintings explore many solutions:

• a calendar-like grid (disguised, perhaps: not squares but hexagons or spindles or bubbles; but structurally, a calendar)
• a mandala with dreams sorted into thematic rings, or a spiral sequence
• a path or river or maze, winding through a painting
• a stone wall in which every stone is a dream
• Or this! This open mountainous landscape full of little scenes is one of the most appealing solutions.

Is this sorting conscious? I don't know. But themes emerge--by feeling.

The dominant one, of course, is rites of passage--learning to walk, pregnancy, retirement. All these transitions are awkward, uncomfortable--dangerous steps and uncertain food, Jenny's guilt over interrupting her friend, the hunched-over baby, drugs and tubes, Noemi's materialism and rudeness--but in the end the transition succeeds; the new state is attained. We run off whooping over the hills.

--Chris Wayan

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