ONCE A HERO...
Dreamed 1998/10/22 and following nights by Chris Wayan
INTRODUCTION
This chain of dreams is a narrative mess--nearly unedited. They're raw for a reason: I want to show how a truth you fear to face can gradually emerge into clarity over many dreams, sometimes many days. Fiction and journalism both start with a bang. Real life starts with a seed. Keep that in mind as you read: one dream's trivia may be the key to the next.
A raw sequence also reveals the nuts and bolts of dreamwork. You'll notice gaps in the numbering; I often recall many dreams in a night, on diverse topics. If I'd typed up every dream from this period, ONCE A HERO would be twice as long.
The CODES after each dream-title classify the dream's themes; for example
p = a psychic dream
b = birth or pregnancy
c = nonhuman characters
j = self-defense and assertion
e1 = someone I'm attracted to.
Writing the codes made me ask what my dreams were up to--made me more objective. My moods can't fool the codes! Also, classifying my dreams this way made it possible to build this site--for example, I could run a search for "p" with spaces around it and get a list of psychic dreams. When you have 20,000 dream-records to get lost in, unaided memory's not enough! For more on coding dreams, see 31 Flavors of Dreams.
After each dream are NOTES of three kinds:
(in parentheses: general speculation or ASSOCIATION to the day's events)That's all you need. Let's begin.
[in square brackets: recurrent SYMBOLS like "cave = solitude"]
{in braces: calls to ACTION--dream advice or warnings.}
Silence in the bed... Action!
1998/10/22... DREAM 1: SHE SINCERELY TRIES TO RECALL e1 j
I was jailed for a felony I didn't commit. Couldn't afford a lawyer, so I was assigned a public defender who believed I did it, only raised procedural questions, and didn't even check my claim I was in Sacramento at the time and witnesses could be found. Even my friends believed I'd done it, didn't bother to verify my story. And they could have. It was true.
I did my time, I'm free now--but I still feel bitter.
I walk into police headquarters, though I'm afraid they'll arrest me again for nothing. Not paranoia--after all, the last time they did, they got away with it. Bring a few friends for moral support. I ask to talk to a policewoman who was on a case in Sacramento that might have introduced her to witnesses who'd have seen me.
I recognize her! Not from life, from a dream I had recently. She was doing a tango with Captain Janeway from the Star Trek show "Voyager." It must have been psychic. I still don't know what the hell it means, but it doesn't sound like your typical cop, and feel reassured. Slight, smart, straight-haired, a bit shy, friendly--doesn't act like the cops I recall, either. I ask her "I know this was a lot of cases ago, but do you recall meeting any of the following people in your investigation?" Show her photos and names. She spends a long time trying to recall. Couple of her coworkers join her. Still can't place any of the witnesses, but she made a sincere effort to relive it all. I'm grateful--she proved not all cops are my enemies.
Then her boss wades in. A tough woman, suspicious and a bit scary. She accuses the cops of goofing off, wasting time to help "a known criminal." Eager to blame me for it. But suddenly I stop being scared and get mad and say "They weren't goofing off, they were doing their jobs--making sure justice is done. I was falsely convicted--I know you think all criminals say that, but no one bothered to check these witnesses, though I asked. I had a constitutional right to be presumed innocent, and I was denied that. My own defender assumed I was guilty. These cops can't give me back the years in prison for a crime I didn't commit, but they can help clear my name. Your institution failed me, and not just me. They're trying to right a wrong."
And their boss actually listens. Stops threatening me. In fact she opens a secret door and lets me and my friends into a narrow hallway like a staff corridor in a hospital. Few civilians ever learn about it, fewer are allowed in. A sign of trust. I feel vindicated. Get a bit lost, but we head downstairs and eventually find our way out.
A new archeological site in South China--limestone crag country. The site's a cave in the flank of a crag, near a waterfall. I'm part of an American team authorized to dig--but just before we reach the site, just across the waterfall-stream, Chinese officials come up and block us by camping on the islet that's the only way across the river. They say "we have our own team, and we know how to live on the land up here. Go home." Our leader is persistent and points out they're essentially besieged on their rock--we can forage all over the mountain. They defy us. "We know how to go without. You Americans are coddled, you'll give in first." They may be right, but most of us suspect they're just out for bribes. They lack the delicate hi-tech tools needed to unravel this very old site. That's why the national government reluctantly authorized us. Local blackmail. But I think they've underestimated us. We came to do this and we expected to camp under difficult conditions high on a mountainside. We won't give up.
DREAM 2b: LOCAL GODDESS c j s w
Whoops! I'm still on a foreign archeological team, but now the site looks drier, the waterfall's gone, and quite a different group is protesting our dig: the local Shen (gods) and Xian (fairies).
We negotiate with the goddess who rules these mountains. She says "You'll foul our stream with tailings, and foul the histories you write with falsehoods. Your kind always omit us spirit-folk, and all our contributions to history."
I answer with relief "But these are understandable reasonable suspicions! You've been burned by Christian and Maoist missionaries, haven't you! We planned only a limited dig, not a mine--and we'd welcome fairy observers to ensure we don't pollute the creek. OR the record! Indeed, we'd be honored by your participation. Would that be acceptable?"
"Well..."
And the dig goes forward--under spirit supervision.
DREAM 2c: FAIRY THEMEPARKS c dat
Meanwhile, down in the river valleys, stadiums and theme parks are being built to exploit the region's folklore for tourists. These tacky little Disneylands do have some benefits: they hire locals whose families are rumored to have fox-blood or fairy-blood, who have been shunned; indeed the parks increase tolerance for all those who look strange or delicate, and even let real fairies and gods and spirits walk among humans safely--out of the closet for the first time since Mao! And the tourism stimulates a resurgence of local culture and art.
But I'm also pleased for a selfish reason: theme parks are an ideal place for me to meet weird women. I'm strongly attracted to fox-girls and part-fairies, with their slender frames, large eyes, delicate chins, and odd hair-colors among the solid sensible Han. So... these grubby theme parks attract and hire women I often like. Girls who aren't quite human, with streaks of psychic power--they cheer me up, I relax, I don't have to hide my own weirdness. And there's little competition from the local guys--these girls give most of the local men the creeps.
Their loss!
DREAM 2d: LITTLE BLONDE ZOO KID AND THE BIG BAD BEAST e0 e1 e3 e i-
I'm puzzled why, but a sort of mini-rhino or -hippo or giant warthog is associated here with fairies, so the zoo just has to have a herd. Several girls from about six to twelve years old, with pale straight hair (very un-Chinese) get hired to care for the animals. Surely they're too young to handle such big beasts! But the kids give me a tour; I view the monsters from the path normally reserved for staff, between artificial rocks dividing paddocks. The oldest girl asks me "Does it look like Heaven?" Apparently these animals are found in all their tales of fairy lands. "More like Hell" I say (in English since I forgot the Chinese for Hell). It does look hellish: wide steaming pools, bare black rocks crawling with ugly monsters...the girls look like angelic visitors, ghostly and delicate among the hulking beasts...
We follow the herd out of the pool-rocks to a green meadow where they start to browse. Heads down, they look like tusky buffalo--not so bad. Peaceful. "All right," I say. "One sort of Heaven, I guess."
At night hippos file into a sort of dorm. Seems unnecessary, the nights here are so mild. The oldest girl guides and tallies them, inspects for illness or injury. A young beast charges up out of a pool, playful I think, or eager to get in, and tries to go right thru her. She spreads her legs, plants her feet, and won't budge. He shoves his scary head between her legs and tries to crawl under her. He pushes up her skirt, which was already pretty short... it looks so sexual I feel a bit shocked and excited. And worried--she's only twelvish. But despite her slight stature, pale straight hair, and delicate face, she's no fragile pushover. She nonchalantly stands her ground and scolds the beast by name, and it backs off.
In fact, she looks remarkably like a younger version of the cop I talked to--and Captain Janeway's tango partner!
Now the beast-tending kids check the special stalls for sick creatures. One centaurish fairy-creature, a knight fused to his horse, staggers in and falls on his side. They only lie down to die! The girls swarm over him, alarmed, doing what they can. The oldest hurries to the phone, looking frightened, and calls the local hospital and begs for a med team at once. But will they believe a child, especially one over at the themepark claiming some mythical creature is sick? Fox-fairies are tricksters and liars, you know. And I've heard the hospital administrator is the biggest skeptic in the county--he's barely accepted fairies are real, certainly not centaurs.
But the girl acts as adult as she can, tries to describe the symptoms, and convinces the nurse on duty, who dispatches a med team. The hospital's only a few minutes away. We wait. The centaur hangs on... Will the ambulance come in time?
Ever?
(NOTE ADDED 2000: No one expected, then, that China's leaders would soon discover it too, and savagely put down this deeply apolitical sect. But there are hints of the government's bias in the dream--the local officials are hostile, and everyone different and mystical mistrusts the government, recalling past pogroms...)
SAME NIGHT, DREAM 5: HER HIPPIE ROLE e1 iq
I'm with the little blonde Chinese girl again, in a crowded Hollywood parking lot, heading for my car. She's happy because she just auditioned for a movie role and they offered her the part. Her only hesitation is that it's set in the hippie era and she's wary they'll make her another young brainless blonde groupie. I say "You'd be wonderful--long blonde hair, miniskirt--and then you open your mouth and there's a brain! Only if you let them talk you into playing stupid is this role a problem."
But then, I'm biased--I think she's hot, I love it when she shows off her legs.
1998/10/23 Friday
Start a book my housemate left out: Elizabeth Moon's ONCE A HERO. Full of echoes of last night's dreams! The heroine, Esmay, is a low-ranking officer in a future space navy. Attractive but single, smart but unambitious, she seems to keep a low profile.
But she gets involved in a (necessary) mutiny against a really scary captain, and saves a lot of lives. The intimidating admiral, whose niece Esmay saved by taking command, listens at least... resembles the scary boss in my dream, who also listens when told the hard truth that the system can fail.
During the inquiry, Esmay finds her memory's wrong in spots. Given leave, she goes home to her conservative family, and strange buried memories start surfacing. My dream seems to be referring to this as well, in all those archeology dreams.
Which you almost never got to read, because for hours I told myself "I'm too tired to write my dreams" and didn't write this down. Too tired, huh? Not too tired to talk, hang a plant-hook for my neighbor, swipe a book to read...
I'm evading my dreams! Strange, when they're so hopeful.
My hypnotherapist assigned me the homework of taking small steps with girls I really am attracted to, regardless of political correctness; in the dreams I did socialize a lot and accepted my sexual feelings more freely--less afraid I'm bizarre or too fragile to get involved with anyone.
But it seems like I'm preparing to unearth a new trove of buried memories, and that's a mixed blessing.
DREAM 3: GIRLS IN DEEP e1 e i- ped thera
Passively watching a dream. No, a video. Shows a group of kids from age four to ten, swimming in a rocky pool in a canyon. Looks like Central Australia. Not swimming together--shot after shot from above showing just one or two of them. Their bright floral swimsuits contrasting with deep dark opaque water. A little somber and scary--I imagine crocs or sharks, though the pool is really too small and the surroundings too dry. I notice guiltily that I'm attracted to a couple of the older girls. Say, why are they all girls? In skimpy suits. With ominous music! Wait a minute! The director chose these shots to deliberately evoke pedophilic voyeurism and violent fantasies--the whole thing echoes the opening scene of JAWS, where we're encouraged to ogle a naked swimmer from a shark's eye view, just before it devours her. That was bad enough, but this video uses kids. Though I'm not sure if it's exploiting this image of sexualized children threatened by some lurker in the deep... or if it's trying to criticize this. These murky depths hide something much more complex than a mere shark!
DREAM 4: HER TACTICS e0 b j
TV show? Young man with a Navy crewcut and a hero's jaw returns to his hometown. He thinks he's outgrown it, can handle any tricks they try to pull. In a bar, cute girl comes up and says "Hi." He looks pleased but a bit blank. She asks "Don't you remember me?" Recognition seeps into his eyes--but he still can't dredge up her name. "We had fun last summer, just before you left for the Academy."
"Oh, yeah." She gradually slides conversation around toward a problem she now has, as a girl friend of hers drifts up and joins them. Once her reinforcements are in place, she attacks. "You're responsible for my problem."
"Me? How?"
"I'm pregnant. You just left and didn't even ask." He wonders if she's asking for the money for an abortion. His naval discipline finally forces him to come out and ask directly, rude though it sounds--he's learning to recognize a battle when he's in one.
"Me? Oh, no, I have enough to pay for it myself." Significant look at her friend. "Nearly enough, anyway. And X here will help out. It's good to have friends you can rely on." Ah, he reasons, trying to stay calm. Nearly enough. So she wants money, but isn't hitting me up for the whole cost. It's been a school year, she'd be almost due now--she's obviously NOT pregnant now, that's a lie, or if true, she's early on and he's not the father. Maybe she had an abortion months ago, but never told him when she WAS pregnant. No, if. If she was. It could be a complete lie. Before his studies at the Academy he would never have let himself suspect her of such a thing. Small-town honesty. But now he recognizes... tactics.
Again meet that friendly little blonde with straight hair. I feel happy. But no details...
DREAM 7: THE BLACK WALL e h i- sci
A house south of San Francisco, on the marine terrace at the foot of the mountains. A fine sea view, south and west.
It's Scot Day, when Scottish-Americans all celebrate their culture. Such as it is. Ooh, that was mean, wasn't it? My friend Mark now lives here too; he's part Scot, and leaves for the holiday dressed in full kilt and regalia. Bagpiping? I have Scottish blood so I observe it too, but not too devoutly. Ugh, haggis.
I go to the door--not really ready to go out yet, but starting to feel active. I'm a slow starter.
Look closely. Not utterly featureless. A faint line of lasers beaming upwards. Do they create it? What IS "it"? Faint arches of water from fireboats up to the curtain's knees... those arcs must be huge. Boats like little wood chips, round the base. It all feels as scary as those pictures of H-bombs set off in Pacific lagoons, with surplus battleships being sunk like toys in a tub. Only this is no photo, and no momentary explosion--the gigantic artifact hangs in midair. How can humans create something so big? Nothing bad seems to be happening but I'm still uneasy. I don't want humans playing with such powers.
At least these humans. I don't trust them.
1998/10/24 Saturday
In the local market, pass a girl whose face resembles the one in my dream. I try not to stare...
Read more of ONCE A HERO: others in the family knew the truth; Esmay's dad forced the family to lie to her, say "You're sick, you imagined being raped at six." She confronts him... and walks out.
Back in the service, starts to realize she trusts no one, has been alone, drifting along in the comforting structure and routine of the military. Wasting her talents.
DREAM 2: ESMAY TELLS SILKY "MOURN!" i=fem c d a-e thera w
On a military starship. I'm Esmay, now!
Another spy's uncovered. We fight, and the spy is killed. The crew's paranoid now--this spy was a high officer, and shared an office with one of the few aliens in this navy.
I have to go interview her. She's Silky, my anima! Here, she's a krelkin--a furred, tailed, gentle, herbivorous person. She's sad that humans can betray each other like this. Her people don't do that--too softhearted? Or they just can't stand to lie?
Her natural instinct is to mourn the traitor in the traditional way--a howling wolf-wail song. But she knows humans well enough to worry they'll suspect she's a traitor too if she mourns an enemy. Or a fool, a stuffed toy, too sentimental to recognize evil when she sees it.
Not! She didn't even like him. But in her culture, you mourn those you lose. The ones you hate, the ones you love. They all shape your life. You mourn the same.
I tell her "His crimes aren't YOUR fault. YOU have nothing to apologize for. Go ahead and be yourself. Don't let others stop you howling. Maybe his soul will benefit. Even if not... yours will."
And Silky shakes her mane back, closes her eyes, rears her head, and howls.
1998/10/25 sun ---
Finish ONCE A HERO--Esmay, in therapy, faces just how abusive her family was. She was raped as a child and they covered it up, lied to her, told her it was a nightmare. I recognize the style: my folks, too, failed to protect me, then hid it even when I asked as an adult. Even now I think "I identify with Esmay, but have nothing concrete to pin on my family." Yet my family lied to me for forty years about what they did to my uncle and what he told me when I was two or three. The terror I learned then shaped my life--crippled me. When they hushed up the facts, I was left with no idea why I was this way. Just a neurotic kid. The parallel with Esmay is quite exact.
I feel bitter tonight. When they first let drop that my psychotic uncle had lived with us, that they left me alone with him, I knew at last where my fear of doctors, shrinks and asylums came from, my childhood nightmares full of wires and shocks and agony, the adult nightmares of betrayal and persecution and death camps... well, I thought the truth would heal me, that I'd trust others more. That I'd have a life. I'm better, I guess--but no girlfriend, no work, not even much play. Did I fail to do something needed to make the revelation real?
Telling my folks what the consequences were didn't change much. They admit the bare facts now (after decades of denial) but remain vague, contradictory and unreliable about them. Still downplay the consequences on me, then and now. They'd rather evade the whole thing. Shows how little discomfort I'm worth to them! Though it's far too little far too late, Esmay's father at least admits it when confronted--she was raped, he lied to her, and not to help her--to prevent scandal. Despite his confession she can't forgive him enough to remain in contact. But my parents won't even face what forty years of cover-up did to me (and sending my uncle back for more electroshock wrecked him even more). They hid it for decades while I spent thousands on therapy. It's never really ended. They still minimize it, evade and shift and downplay. They have intelligence; but they use it for evasion.
My paralysis is because I never got what Esmay did: the truth. Their story always changes. And what I feel isn't anger but fear. Not of them, now. The fear that other consummate masters of denial are lurking out there, and I'm still vulnerable to manipulation.
And I fear they've made me one of them--that I lie too, and don't even know it.
Could be true! So? Learn to live with it. Or don't.
NOTE, 2006
So bitter, so fatalistic! In contrast, look what the dreams say:
And other fey people are out there--strange, rejected, wonderful creatures. Fox-spirits among the humans. I'd make one of them a good mate. Being one.
And very likely, if you've read this far, you are too.
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