THAT DAY

When I dreamt this, I was recovering from a batterer, broke, and quite sick. Family (and doctors) said it was all in my head (really an untreated infection PLUS gluten intolerance). In my head? How about therapy then? Nope!

So I did dreamwork--the shrink you see for free.

THAT NIGHT

Another horror movie! But so hokey I laugh--at first. The star? A triceratops so big his horns loom above horizon, even miles far. But he's not just a dinosaur: a runaway train too. Crushes brush, a Loco Motive. The desert burns. Tramples boomtowns in the dust. Godziratops? They're burning lots of loco weed to shoot this stupid film. Wildlife dies. I'm mad. Real lives, sacrificed to fake their cheesy reels. Horrorflick swallows my friends & me. Triceratops still two miles away, but he's so big here come his horn- tips before him! I yell "SCATTER!" We separate, hide behind tallgrass tufts. A girl strolls by, blind to beast. Does she scout for him? I wiggle yards closer, warily spy on her. Sharp glance--did she see me behind tussock? Poor cover this near. Drum, drum! Hulking torso looms. Spikes rhinoceroid. Triceratops as man! He stalks toward the heedless girl, but when he spots me, grins and changes quarry: herds, traps, jabs, jabs again me with his monster ballpoint pen! I run, yell "NAVA! HELP!" but my friend Nava walked off. You see, she fell in love with a girl & now can't hear anyone but Miss Right. Oh, well. Wonder how her husband'll feel? So I must fight alone. Fight dirty. Finally I feel guilty about that, and to the beast confess "I'm phobic about getting cut." "More than GUNS?" says the monster, surprised. "I hate KNIVES!" I shout; "Far memories of bleeding out." "I'll take that into" says the Minotaur "consideration when constructing your dreams tonight... and from now on!" Oh. His job? Nice to be heard, I guess. Finer-tuned horror. How generous. We fight endlessly on. I get so worn I blurt out, rash--"I wish I could quit and go to bed." To my amaze he says "Tomorrow, then. Go crash. The next room over's free." I stagger down hall, only to find the bedroom door don't fill its frame! Can't lock the monsters out in the hall. (No longer solo--not only my dream- scriptwriter, portable Gate of Horn, my personal persecutor! No, beside Triceratops now blusterly doth stride my bust-in-to-nag-you Jovial Dad.) Oh, Horny's sly. Assigned me an unlockable nook so he'll slip in with custom-built nightmare truths-- when I wake I'll have to pen. Yet... by the lintel's a wide closet--three sliding panels. And the room-door's just a fourth panel, on the same rails--they curve around. Perhaps I CAN lock up! So I slide TWO of the four doors over! Ill-sized, but paired overlapping panels do plug the nightmare gap. Lock, snap! The cost? Now closet-jaw yawns wide. So... just which monsters will I decide to let invade my dreams? Horror hid in closetdark--or dinosaurs outside?

NOTES NEXT MORNING

• Burn the desert to shoot a film: I've been having fierce blazing dreams (movies!) teaching hard lessons, but they drain me. Too much too fast? Dream researcher Ann Faraday says "dreams grant reckless requests as readily as wise ones." It's your job to pace the painful revelations!
• A triceratops so big it looms over horizon: the Red Bull in The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle--a callous, relentless servant, a brute that obeys only the strong-willed--and uncaring. I ask for insights, and my Dino Rhino will happily heap 'em on! Yet... whenever I asked, he cooperated--adjusted the barrage.
• Ballpoint pen: at the time I wrote my dreams in ballpoint. The pen is mightier than the horn!
• Nava falls for a woman, dumps husband: lost track of her, so I don't know this is literal, or if it's just warning me "this is YOUR fight--friends can't help!"
• Far memories of bleeding out: "Far memory" means past-life experience. I hazily recall someone slashing the inside of my elbows so I bled to death. Not in THIS life. This isn't belief in reincarnation but experience. I rarely talk about this, and it's revealing that I do with the monster.
• Gate of Horn: the ancient Greeks said true dreams came from a gate of horn. Horn, cut thin, is translucent; the Greeks lacked glass windows, or it might have been the Gate of Glass. The Gate of Ivory issued false dreams--ivory's milkier, you can't see through to the meaning. Ivory dreams weren't false so much as opaque or unclear. Triceratops is himself a walking Gate of Horn; sharp painful truths.
• Borrow closet doors to block dad & dinosaur: let my real feelings outa the closet & I can say no to family guilt trips and mitigate nightmares.
• ACTION: I can't block BOTH inner and outer nightmare-gates at once, but now I can choose which to block and even switch if needed! Progress, I guess. For now, I'll let the inner storms rage, and lock out my damn family. Hell is other people! At least this week.

2015 NOTE

I posted this dream for two reasons.

1. How often do you get to meet the scriptwriter of your own dreams? And learn he does listen.
2. But also... this dream warns against banishing nightmares totally, via bland behaviorism. You can't and shouldn't--they warn of real problems! Have a talk, fine-tune them, even learn to half-shield yourself... but leave the horror door ajar! It seems we need monstrosity. In moderation.

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