DAY

Internal stresses and resistance can inhibit dreaming & dream recall. But do physical illness and external stress do it too? I make a health chart for 2025 and compare it to my dream recall. The correlation's powerful.

January to March: I was massively stressed. My parked car was totaled a year ago by a City water truck. For 15 months, the City stalled, lied about crossed or lost communications, lied about the car's age, condition, even denied I ever owned it. No written offer--not low offers, none. I expect corporations to act like scum, but this was a supposedly progressive government agency actively trying to hurt me till I'd give up.

I said I'd sue on March 15; the city settled one day before I filed. My energy came back right away. April & May, I was fine.

In June, I got Covid. Sick and near-dreamless for weeks. Late June & July I recovered--slowly. Sohhhh slowwwwwllllyyyyyy....

August: my doctor sharply raised the thyroid drug I take. I got nearly as sick as Covid--low fever & hot flashes, insomnia, tachycardia, night sweats, volatile moods. Doctors told me my symptoms were "subjective" and I should go on overdosing! Subjective my ass: I took zero a few days, then cut up the pills, resumed my previous dose, and steadily recovered through September. October wasn't bad.

In November I had the worst dream-month in years. I'd like to blame Trump, but hasn't he been at it all year? December wasn't great either. So this most recent slump's mysterious--maybe internal. Though it may have been sympathetic. My sister Miriel threw her back out and was in pain for months; my sister Althea got pneumonia and wheezed all winter. You can be skeptical, but when one of us gets injured, all three of us hurt. "All for one, and one for all."

What interests me is how many slumps were inarguably external trauma. Even brief illnesses and stresses (the flu and a couple of grueling house-repair jobs) caused short, clear, sharp drops in recorded dreams. Yet I missed the correlation! I'm an experienced dreamworker, but I still thought I was lazy or avoiding some issue. Even though what the chart shows is a body reeling from multiple assaults.

LESSON: if you're dreamnesic, don't assume it's avoidance, inexperience or lack of diligence. Maybe you're sleep-short and borderline ill.

Anyway... this month I set a New Year's Intention--to raise my dream recall by scrupulously practicing what's usually a bit slapdash--review of my day and a notebook by my bed and closer attention to fragments--all good dream-practice--but I ALSO increased supplements, quiet time, rest and play. And (hardest for me) chose to let down others who wanted more out of me--reduce stress even if others judged me irresponsible.

What happened? Instant dream-explosion! The first night: Boobnoculars. And it was no fluke. Here's night three: or at least, three of its seven dreams.

DREAMS

1: FERAL CABBAGE

Post-apocalyptic America. Scattered tribes are the only survivors. I'm an explorer and intertribal messenger. On a brushy slope, I find a massive plant like a squat, huge head of broccoli half a meter wide and high... but mustard-yellow, stalks and all. A mutant, feral cabbage! I show it to the healer of the local tribe and say "This is edible." More than edible; medicinal. It's loaded with Vitamin C--and I need a lot (I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a mutation causing low-grade scurvy on a normal diet).

I break off some sprouts to propagate; I think small cuttings will root. Then I find I'm now at my parents' old house in the Eichler Highlands. The tribal chief sows some of my cuttings into the ivy covering the front yard. The sprouts won't have a chance here--ivy smothers everything. Plant them elsewhere!

NOTES

• Feral yellow cabbages: in the age of sail, cabbage prevented scurvy, so sailors planted cabbage on remote islands lacking fresh fruit. They went feral, and some ended up looking like this dream-plant. I have a genetic mutation, Ehlers-Danlos, that causes lifelong scurvy. Doctors dismissed the symptoms all my life; I self-diagnosed a few years ago and proved it to them. So my dreams readily compare my life to the history of scurvy...
  Sea-captains found cures for scurvy at least three times independently, but scientists dismissed them all--these ignorant sailors couldn't say why it worked! Science's focus on explanations (not results) killed thousands of sailors over generations before the British Navy finally mandated limes on deepsea voyages--still only knowing it worked--not why.
  So... the dream warns I need to manage my own health. For my particular illness, science has been not just useless but an active hindrance--for centuries.
• Can't plant sprouts in parents' yard: my parents' values also stifle new, better health practices.
• Why ivy?
  1. My parents were Stanford grads, the western answer to the east's Ivy League. Ivy League intellectualism has strengths, but casts a shadow too. I learned to value the mind, but devalue the body. I was taught to trust experts like doctors, and disdain the sort of sea-captain experimentation that eventually saved my life.
  2. My parents planted that ivy because it was low maintenance. They liked low maintenance. That extended to their kids. My sisters & I learned not to expect much... maintenance. Self-reliance, simplicity & austerity can be healthy--in moderation. But we slip easily into self-neglect.

I'm shown a plushie someone hand-sewed out of fake fur... then abandoned. Left outside. Rained on and ratty. But the basic plan's still clear--a big dog or wolf. Not so different from the dream-creatures I've sewn out of fake fur too.

But this one... was it just a huggable child's toy, for emotional comfort, or... a sex toy? I'm curious--but too embarrassed to grope its crotch and find out. Or maybe just... the creature may have been sexy once, even loved... but now is worn out.

Wait--is this creature me?

• Grope the plushie: literal! Last week at our house party, a woman I didn't know came into my bedroom, saw the lifesize dream-creatures I sewed out of fake fur, and promptly groped their crotches to see if they were anatomically correct, and loudly, happily announced they were.
• So the creature may mean dreams, sex... or embarrassment?
• Ratty & worn: I do feel worn out (charting the year showed me just how stressed & ill I was) but this image is literal too. A year ago, rats chewed their way into our house and gnawed the face off one of my plushies. I've re-sewn it, but don't like the result, need to re-do.
• Abandoned: Ever since getting Covid, my libido and dream recall are both way down. But this abandoned plushie suggests sex and dreaming didn't abandon me, I abandoned them! Did my post-Covid fatigue mask depression or sociopolitical despair? Covid's a socially acceptable excuse to withdraw.

We all live in a big hall. Cushions cover the floor. We sleep in a heap--a dozen creatures or so, some human, some not (guess whose team I'm on). The miniature tigress near me (still big as a lynx) has been sleeping for MONTHS. I try to wake her up--poke and pet her.

And persistence works. She rouses. Grumpy at being wakened, snappish, but not outraged. Doesn't bite me hard, only nips.

I keep petting her. Won't let her go back to sleep. You can't hibernate forever!

Am I teasing her now in hope of sex later? Maybe. I'm more attracted to her than to any human in the room.

• Tigress: often (in my dreams) means
  1. Connection to my body, especially sensuality, sex and play.
  2. Connection to my dreams, especially advanced dreamwork--epic, lucid shamanic or predictive dreams.
• Awaken tiger after months: after months of post-covid lethargy, sex and dreams are waking up at last. But it won't just happen naturally. Recovery takes effort! I have to rouse myself--fight the fatigue that's one of the symptoms, in order to take actions that reduce the fatigue...
• ACTION: Exercise, nutrition, attention. Persistence! And don't be fazed if my dreams (and feelings) are... snappish.

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