The Room is Spacious and Bright

A lizzard living in my leg

2008-08-10T04:06:00.001-07:00

I dreamt last night that I had an area of dry skin on my outer left thigh. When I observed it more closely it's shape was like a little snake, with four little foot like protusions. I took some nivea cream and spent some time covering the area of dry skin with this, rubbing more and more in. The area of dry skin began to emerge from my thigh (drawn out by the cream) and turned out to be a lizzard that had been living in my leg. It ran off and hid in the bathroom, leaving a lizzard like dent behind in my thigh.

The emergence of the lizzard was actually very painful in the dream (I had to look in the morning to see if I wasn't injured there!) but within the pain there was a feeling of something departing my body that needed not to be held there. The dream ended with the lizzard still in my bathroom - I wanted to catch and contain it, but also I was afraid that if I went after it, that if might 'occupy' my body once again, that it might even take me over.

Later that day I drew the tarot card - The High Priestess - whose qualities include objectivity, penetration, foresight, perception and emotionlessness. I felt then that the lizzard perfectly embodied these qualities with his cold emotionless eyes (someone some days previous had actually commented on how cold my eyes are - a reflection that both shocked and intrigued me). That it was at liberty and abroad in the world - whilst thi might frighten me, perhaps this represents a positive development in how I manifest in the world...?

ice channel melted

2007-11-11T03:51:00.000-08:00

I am with a man, we are on an open hillside looking down an a huge glacial channel of ice cutting a great fissure into the surrounding rocks.

He says "we can move this" and levers himself into place at the top of the channel - back braced against rock and feet straining to push the ice. It seems ridiculous that we could move so much ice but I join him in the endeavour.

To my surprise it begins to shift and soon the ice is on the move, crunching and creaking it's way down the mountainside. We follow behind it giving it a helping push now and again, but it happens mostly easily and without effort and we have time to 'surf' on on the shiny surface left behind as we follow the flow down the mountainside.

We skate laughing all of the way down till we reach the ocean, where I see that the salt is slowly breaking the ice plug into a vast ocean slush puppy. The mood of this event is joyful, playful but also contains within it a sense of awe that so much could be moves so quickly and effortlessly.

Red squirrel

2007-10-11T02:30:00.000-07:00

I am in bed back at Trysull road, the house where I grew up. I am in my parents bed, it is a huge, beautiful hardwood bed like a boat boat and I am lost in a sea of soft quilts along with my ex partner Steve. The scene is one of happy, safe and cosy domesticity rather than sexual.

A red squirrel appears, first at the window, then in the gulleys of the quilt, cautiously sniffing around. Gently I hold out my hand and coax it toward me. I notice it is wearing a very deep, brown leather collar - the collar is at least two inches wide and seems a bit excessive given the small size of the creature. I say to Steve "look, it has been tamed, someone must have been keeping it as a pet".

It comes to me and we start to make friends, I am playing around with it and it seems quite tame. But then it starts to hiss, to bite my hand - it's jaws open to a supernatural degree like the creature in alien. It then starts to attack my teddy bear (brown teddy, as old as I am to the day and held together by fragile threads of love) and I have a hard job parting them.

I continue to play with red squirrel but realise that the notion that she can be tamed is a false one and that the collar will have to come off.

Organic invasion of two teenage girls

2007-09-29T03:12:00.000-07:00

I am an adolescent girl in this dream, maybe a little older, early twenties? Still with the flush of youth, not yet stepped into 'womanhood'.

I am with some other girl friends all of a similar age. We have been on the run, something has been chasing us. We have though arrived in a new flat, we think that maybe we are safe now. It is a bit of an adventure - perhaps like leaving home for the first time.

We are looking around the rooms of our new flat, it is empty, spacious, stylish - wooden floors, period features - an attractive shared apartment in which my friends and I can play and learn to be 'grown ups'.

We walk into one room, and a very strange site greets us. It is one of our friends, it looks as if she is asleep, but she is almost vertical? She is strangely suspended in the middle of the room, yet looks peaceful and at rest.

I have a sinking feeling in my gut, I have seen this somewhere before, I begin to back away and try to warn my friend....

But it is too late. Now I am out of my body and watching the two girls - this I now remember is the thing that we have been fleeing, but it is too late, it is upon us.

As I watch them, an organic growth sprouts from surprised mouths, from small pert nasal passages. It grows like a vine around their faces and they are bound together - upright, like their friend. They are cocooned by an invasive growth, whether it is animal or vegetable it is hard to tell, it seems to be a combination of both.

There seems to be some inevitability to this event, like it was something they could not escape no matter how far they ran.

The friends now are all 'sleeping' - in stasis - it seems that they will be killed by this invasion, yet I sense also they will wake up into a new and unrecognisable world with only a distant echo remaining of their lives before this event.

the most beautiful dream

2007-09-22T01:33:00.000-07:00

I am at Trysull Road, in the house where I grew up. I am there alone, it seems as if everyone has left, I think I am locking the place up to leave it behind.

I go out into the back garden, it was a beautiful big garden with plenty of trees (apple, poplar, cherry) and a hedge. I walk up to the 'wilder' part of the garden (the bit that was always slightly overgrown) and there I meet:

Fox! A beautiful, large, stately, golden fox. He emanates wisdom and protection as he smiles at me kindly - it is the spirit of fox. I feel his presence in my dream, communicating something to me beyond what I am seeing. He seems to be surrounded by an aura of golden light.

I move on an my attention is drawn over the fence into next doors garden. This garden was a big vegetable plot, owned by an elderly widow Mrs Jones. As a child I used to climb up into the poplar tree and slide over into her plot with great excitement and nervousness. Me and my friends believed her to be a witch and we would look for evidence in her garden, wondering what purposes the many plants she grew might be put to...

I look over the fence and see - lots more animals! I have a set of native american indian animal medicine cards and the animals are all drawn from this set. I can't remember them all, there were so many, but I remember seeing rabbit, and moose, and I think there was badger or skunk too? Maybe a deer. They come over to greet me, as if they have been waiting for me. I feel their presence as spirit, not just as a fleeting chimera or image.

As I am locking up my home in my dream to depart for somewhere else, I have a sense that the animals have come out to tell me that they were there with me in my childhood - in the 'witches garden' - and have been ever since. The house at Trysull Road was sold in 2001 - but in my dream life I have never, till this moment, ever left it. In fact in many many dreams I have been looking and looking to find my way BACK there: perhaps this dream marks a moment of psychological departure.

The fox in my medicine cards is a guardian and protector, watching unobtrusively over it's family, creating a safe place for it's children to play. The fox family is often also to be seen on the move, so this animal totem is a good omen for travelers too.

trapped pregnant woman

2007-09-20T01:16:00.000-07:00

There is a pregnant woman in a squalid flat, all dark as if the windows are boarded up.

I understand that she is captive, has been held there by her captor for some time. She gets up off the bed quietly and starts to move around the flat. She moves as if she believes she is tethered at the ankle by a chain, only when I look at the place I expect the chain to be trailing along behind her, there is nothing.

There are I believe camera's the 'he' has set up on the ceiling - but are they working though?

She moves around the flat looking for things - a knife? A weapon? An exit...?

She heads towards a room and in typical horror movie fashion she is moving towards a room where we (the audience) know that something terrible happened before: we are all screaming "No, don't go that way...!" but of course she does not hear.

She enters the room and I hold my breath. It is even darker, even more squalid in here and the space reeks of a crime. She looks to the end of the room and there are thick floral curtains full length curtains, a patio window maybe...?

She moves quickly towards them, with a dramatic gesture pushes them open. We (the audience) are now ahead of her and see her face close up looking down in horror for several seconds: 'what has she seen' we wonder!? Is it perhaps the 'last victim' - a corpse all mangled and rotting?

Next the camera pans back and pregnant lady is standing...

on the edge of a cliff. It is a dramatic and beautiful scene, maybe Cornish - high cliffs, blue sky.

Silently she topples forward off the edge of the cliff to her freedom.

(strangely I do not get the impression that she crashes on the beach or the cliff face, in fact I suspect there may have been a big wooden double bed with white cotton sheets suspended in mid air and that after her fall, she in fact found herself waking up, as if from a bad dream, in this beautiful bed?)

the corn king 2

2007-09-20T01:09:00.000-07:00

I see an old scarecrow lying on the floor, it is all splayed out and lifeless with corn sheaves sticking out of it's sleeves.

Suddenly though it begins to move, it is jumping and twisting at the neck in a most peculiar way, as if trying to get up. Briefly in my dream I think of another dream - when I saw the corn fields stand up and kill families, children.

I tell myself to be brave and move closer. His head starts to fall off and inside I see...

Woofa! My lovely old little dog, white and wiry a cross between Jack Russel and a Terrier (she died last year). She has made her bed in the straw but perhaps it is itching her, she is rather grumpily (as was always her way as she got older!) digging and turning trying to get comfy; it is this that is making the corn king dance.

She settles back down again, I note in my dream that she must have gotten cold and so had hid in there for warmth; I note that I must make sure I provide bedding to keep her warm.

3 red setters

2007-09-20T01:00:00.000-07:00

I am a red setter (the dog) swimming in the sea. I am the dog but I am also a human presence watching myself. I have 2 other friends (also red setters) and we are having a fabulous time diving, surfacing, swimming underwater, playing together. The part of me that does this is ecstatic, the part of me that watches knows that a tragedy is unfolding.

I dive, surface, dive, surface all of the while looking for my friends - to connect with them in my ecstasy (think of a dog running around on the beach, plunging into the sea and you will know the kind of joy that I mean)...

Only I become aware that I have not seen one of my friends for a time? I am now at the shoreline, scanning a vast and increasingly unfriendly looking ocean, with red setter number 2 at my side. We scan the horizon desperate for sight of our friend but to no avail, and with a sinking feeling we realise that he is lost under the waves of a sea now gone grey and cold.

The part that watches the scene nods sadly, she knew that this was coming, she had already seen it.

the corn king

2007-09-06T23:48:00.000-07:00

The dream commences with preparing for a holiday, for some kind of journey.

I am in a car (with a family?) - driving them along a long straight 'highway' (it seems that we are in America). I am accelerating, my passengers are getting scared, "don't look back" I am telling them - and we accelerate faster, faster - the dream is all rushing road, revving engine and cornfields passing by in a blur.

Next I am up above the scene watching from the sky. Other cars are accelerating too, some are swerving, crashing, out of control. A tidal wave of 'something' is coming down the road. There is a lady in a jeep (a black lady) and I realise she is my friend. I will her to drive faster but she is slowing down, letting people by. "No don't stop" I want to scream (only I am 'out of my body'!) but she pulls into a lay by...

Then to my relief I see what she is doing as she swings round and throws her car up the embankment opposite; pitching over the top the vehicle lands on it's side but she climbs out unscathed. With a family she stands at the top of the embankment watching - I look down the road expecting a wave or some natural disaster, some kind of weather phenomenon...

But instead I see that the corn either side of the road is gathering up into a dusty a wave and has formed into a giant corn monster! It is almost comical, like some awful B movie, but it is terrifying too - the ground shakes as he walks down the road roaring like Godzilla!

There is a family scrambling up the bank from a nearby farm, he reaches over and scoops them all up in one dry, scratchy corn hand. They are all screaming and one by one he plucks them out of his hand and hurls them to certain death across the corn fields. It is sickening watching them, especially the women, screaming as they await their 'turn'.

Then he is down to the children, I don't see the little girl go (maybe I have looked away by this time)...

Next there is a little boy, about 7, he shouts heroically (again like some poor American B movie) "You big beast I'll huff and I'll puff..." but we don't hear what else he has to say as he too is hurled into the air.

Here the dream (nightmare) sinks to depths far beyond even B movies as I hear the boy shouting at the monster still as he flies through the air; then the thud as he hits the ground - a choking sound as he fights for his last few breaths...

My attention focuses in on the farm house that they all ran from (though in the back of my mind I am concerned for the safety of the black lady standing on the bank watching all of this). I see an old fashioned wooden fold up chair (of the kind used in village halls or a small parish church). The seat has two words cut with a pocket knife on it's underside, which is revealed as it is folded up.

It says simply "thankyou" and then a name. The name begins with "K" and maybe has an "S" in it too - I can't remember more but I have the feeling it was an old Pagan name. I sense that this simple carved gesture (which may have been done by the boy?) is what has enraged the corn king.

Either the boy has thanked some God that he shouldn't have been consorting with, or the family has forgotten to thank the corn King and this is why he is angry (I sense all of this somehow as I watch the scene).

(the name may have been 'Kreysws' though this is not quite right, I think there was some 'old' or unusual lettering in the name - perhaps though some early version of 'Christus'?)

public toilets

2007-09-03T02:07:00.000-07:00

I am in some kind of community college / adult education centre and need the toilet. I see the doors closing on a lift, I press the button and make them open again and step in with two girls in their late teens; they clearly don't want me sharing the lift with them but I don't really care.

I follow them to the toilets and we walk in to a horrific sight. Every toilet is brown, stained, full of shit, overflowing and the floors are all horrifically flooded with god knows what. In one cubicle that I dare not look into, I see that the floor is awash with congealing blood and maggots, I wonder to myself if perhaps someone had slashed their wrists in there and why no-one had bothered to clean it up.

I remember dimly that I had been to these toilets earlier in that same night / dream; on this first visit they were much cleaner. I wonder how it could have gotten so bad?

The girls are tiptoeing around, actually intending to USE these toilets but I realise that I simply cannot. I ask them if they know of any others elsewhere (I was a little intimidated by their teenage boisterousness at first but I have regained control and mastery over the situation now)...

The one girl turns to direct me to some other toilets. Her mouth is a gaping black cavern on her face (maybe she has been eating those sweets that children sometimes do, that dye the mouth black?), she has braces and her hair frizzes in an ungainly way. I feel slightly repelled by her 'ugliness' but try not to show it.

(That morning when I wake up my period has started).

naughty girl

2007-09-03T01:59:00.000-07:00

I am in the countryside, I am looking after a little girl about 6 or 7 years old. She has been left with me by her family who are now going off for a countryside walk, they have a little toddler toddling after them who is the sibling of the girl with me.

The toddler keeps looking back over his shoulder to us and looks distressed in some way, then I notice that it is his dummy he is looking for and the naughty little girl with me has stolen it. I run after the family and give them the dummy.

I am heading back to the camp away from the family and the little girl is with me, she wants to go with the family and to be honest, so do I! I am quite peed off that I have been left to look after this truculent little monster and I am feeling sulky and not at all up to the task!

She climbs up a tree to see the family walking off over the horizon and says she wants to go with them. I am really angry by now and shout that she can't because she is too naughty, which is why she has been left behind.

I am embarrassed by my anger with such a young child and look around to see if anyone has seen me shouting so cruelly at her....

but she really is so very naughty!

the foxes lair

2007-08-29T00:45:00.000-07:00

I am at a small sea-front park with a beautiful young girl, about 6 or 7 I am pushing her on a swing. Our attention is caught by a commotion on the beach so we all run over.

We find a crowd has gathered around a creature that has beached itself, it looks like a cross between a seal and an eel - it has beautiful big round eyes and the plumpness of a seal, but a length and razor sharp spine more like that of an eel. We are considering how to save it and I think that I step forward and begin to move it; but then it manages to flip and push itself back in to the sea without assistance.

Now I am moving into the sea following the creature. I have no body and no need to breath and move effortlessly through the dark cold substance. I see dogs, lots of dogs - they are forming into a long train, each one holding the next ones tail between it's teeth (the pattern they form doing this reminds me of DNA? of the basic chains and molecules that form life...)

I follow their train into the darkness, as if being guided by a length of string I had left to find my place back to somewhere really important.

Deeper and deeper they take me till I reach a wooden door, it is wide, old, heavy and made of thick wooden beams of the kind that might be salvaged from a ship wreck. The door is closed but I sense it will soon open. I am greeted by a presence, the spirit of a fox. His presence is huge, but not at all malevolent. He is much bigger than the dogs and looking again I realize that they are all beagles, the dogs that used to be employed in the hunting of foxes.

Only in his lair the fox is the king and the dogs are his loyal servants.

I stand awaiting the opening of his lair with a feeling of peace, knowing that I have been seeking this doorway for some time, and finally, I have arrived.

(later in the day when I am swimming, the dream surfaces once again from my subconscious, only this time the fox is a shark and the dogs are sea-lions; this daytime reconfiguration is althogether more fearful).

brown sparrow wakes me

2007-08-28T09:29:00.001-07:00

I have had a poor nights sleep, I silence my alarm and doze off again despite having an important meeting that morning. I snooze for a while, lying on my back, until a little brown bird (a sparrow?) flutters into my room, dips down and 'bops' me right in the middle of my forehead as if to say "Get up!".

I wake up and see that I will only just be in time for my meeting.

The cresta run

2007-07-20T04:01:00.000-07:00

I am at an art event watching a film made by an artist of a cresta-run (the winter sport where people propel themselves at very fast speeds down a tunnel of ice in a bullet shaped vehicle) - she has mounted a camera on the front of the vehicle.

She sets off at a steady pace, but quickly builds up, faster and faster...

We now see her from overhead (and I realize it is ME) and the containing tunnel of ice has disappeared, she is careering out of control on open mountainside with little control of her direction.

She approaches a sheer scree face (one might say a cliff!) coming at it horizontally from the snow field above. The momentum of her speed takes her perilously across the scree face and it seems miraculous that she does not just fly off into the air.

Just as she arrives at the other side of the scree onto safer ground, we see an avalanche behind her and as she looks back, she knows that she crossed just in time to avoid the crushing ice, rocks and snow.

I look at her / me and think "wow, how spectacular, what a brave feat!" but in the back of my mind a voice also nags "but is it really? Is it not just foolhardy? She seems a brave adventurer, but I am not so sure about the core motivation of her activity, whether it is really sound...?"

Later on I am looking at a photo of her on a living room wall; next to it is the photo of a handsome man. The pictures are both kept in beautiful silver frames and each has a swirling motif rather like a shell.

I understand that he/me/she/they are married and very happy, they radiate contentment and bliss beyond the silver frames and there is something deeply beautiful about this.

Red dress running

2007-07-20T03:53:00.000-07:00

I am running in the streets of the neighbourhood where I grew up. It is dark, I asses myself to be on Woodland Road or Coppice Road, about 10 minutes walk from my home.

I am barefoot, wearing the short, see through, crepe cotton nighty that I am asleep in - running, running, running.

My legs are strong and I find that I run well. I have the steady and confident pace of a long distance runner who knows well the length of the course and how to set a pace that assures completion.

Looking down at my nighty I realize that I have nothing with me, no key, and I wonder "how will I get in the house when I get there (I am going home)? Why did I leave bringing nothing with me?"

But onwards I run, keep running, keep running, keep a steady pace, do not fear....

and I continue to move with sureness and ease, pacing myself well for the distance ahead and a finish line that I cannot yet see.

The Stag

2007-07-20T03:44:00.000-07:00

I am with an old friend and former partner. I find myself looking at him fondly and with love.

He is in the middle of executing a 'pun' - he is trying to entertain me, to make me laugh. He has on 3 cloak or coats - one a large black cape that sweeps his ankles, the other a coat that is tied around his waist. All of these are part of his 'joke' but the pun is mistimed and I fail to see the joke.

"Oh well" he says in despair at my lack of humour! He starts to take the costumes off, one by one composed of several layers, they are all I notice very dark colours. "It's a shame, last of all I was going to show you this" he says as he peels off the last layer:

and he reveals a beautiful bright ochre coat of the finest silk. It is fitted and elegant and suggests high quality tailoring. There is much embroidery around the buttons on the front and looking closer I see that it has a beautiful 'stag' emblem on the collar in an earthy, rich, deep burnt umber brown.

A massacre

2007-07-20T03:10:00.000-07:00

I see a group of men in the khaki, brown, beige clothes of the army.

They are all bound, legs and knees bent, hands behind back and with black bags on their heads. They are terrified, their fear is so palpable, they are in a cart being taken through a city.

They are unloaded from the cart in a central square and their captors now visible move away leaving them in a terrified huddle, they start to scream and shake sensing that the end is near. The captors begin to shoot - at body and limbs - and they fall over twitching and kicking against their bindings, the scene is horrific.

An officer (it is now clearly a Nazi officer and I notice that several of the soldiers are black) goes round shooting each whether dead or still alive in the head. He comes to one unshot soldier helpless and bound, struggling on the floor.

The officer looks around him and then leans down to take the mask off the man below him.

Why does he want to uncover his face?

Is it to further frighten him?

Or is it to restore his victims humanity?

Is it the gesture of a torturer?

Or a penitent saviour?

Has he relented and found compassion?

The dream end poised in these questions,.

The school and the ocean

2007-07-20T02:59:00.001-07:00

I am with a former art teacher of mine and we are in a school. A dignitary is soon to be visiting (OFSTED maybe?) and we are doing the placed up.

We are in the sports hall moving out old furniture, broken shelves, and painting the space blue, silver and pearl metallic (like the inside of a mollusc). I notice that some if the painting is shoddy, it has been done too quickly, the paint applied too thickly and without sensitivity. I point this out to my teacher who quickly rectifies it without pause or fuss.

We are being helped by school girls, one of them has gone out on top of the building to look for something and is reporting back to us via video camera. She is on the roof of a skyscraper and close to the edge, she seems oblivious to the danger and I fear for her.

Back in the sports hall I am playing a word game now with some of the girls. We have little blue and red foam 'pellets' (like little pills) and they open out to reveal words within. We open our pills, deep red, deep blue, deep red, deep blue...

the girls are all childish teenage excitement - of the kind that comes about with the opening first flush of puberty - climbing all over me, I find I am annoyed with their exuberance.

The words in the pellets are all related to the sea, or seafood - "mollsuc", "starfish", "mussel", "sea shell" - each word as it is opened seems to release with it the essence of the sea and I find myself lost and overwhelmed once again in the beauty of the Ocean Goddess.

the Chello

2007-07-20T02:56:00.001-07:00

I have a chello which I am trying to play.

I am trying in earnest and manage to get some sounds on the high strings. But the beautiful thick low strings are all loose and wobble uselessly, too slack to sing.

I keep on and on trying though to make them sound and sense as I do so that somewhere I have a memory of their song.

A victim, tyrant and 2 officers of the law

2007-07-20T02:45:00.000-07:00

Two police officers (one male, one female) discover a horrible mutilated but still alive victim (female) and her oppressor who is male. I am aware of myself being all four characters in the dream simultaneously.

The victim has practically starved herself to death. She lies on a bed, her arms limp and immobile ("yes" the male officer says "it often happens that the muscle will detach itself from the body when not used"). Her two sides (her midriff area left and right) are like two deflated balloons hung from her boney ribcage. The male officer slightly lift one of the limp fleshy sacks and when he lets go it flops back down to the bed.

The tyrant who has little to say was going to put this poor specimen to use in a dishonourable way (employ her for shoplifting perhaps?) but law and order is restored with the arrival of the two officers and the tyrant is safely disarmed.

The Cobra

2007-07-20T02:43:00.000-07:00

I am faced by a cobra. It is brightly coloured and exquisitely beautiful.

It attacks my face, biting me again and again, aiming in particular for my cheeks. I raise my hands and squint my eyes to defend myself. Yet somewhere deep in my consciousness I am aware that the bites whilst 'poisonous' - are actually healing and not hurting me.

Even at the ripe young age of 35 I am still prone to blush. Whilst this tendency does not visit me so often as it did in my youth, it still does. I am more able now though to welcome a blush with curiosity and the knowledge that this quality can also be rather attractive.

I awoke with the feeling that the apparently violent content of this dream was in fact deeply healing, rather like a combination of acupuncture and small doses of poison used to stimulate immunity.

Blue Heron

2007-07-20T02:39:00.000-07:00

I am overwhelmed by the arrival of a Blue Heron; its presence is majestic, awesome. This is one of those rare moments in dreams where I become suddenly sentient, aware that I am dreaming and of what I am dreaming.

I leave this conscious space and dream next that I am the keeper of a Jail. I have granted a pardon to two men and am releasing them from their cells. One is old, the other much younger - they both have the appearance of having lived life on the street.

As they are walking away, I have the sudden realisation that a potentially fatal theft has taken place. Instinctively I run to the older man and tear at his trouser leg. Attached to his calf (and bound in a most cruel and distressing way) is the blue heron.

At first I fear it is dead, but then it opens it's eye to look at me - I easily release it with a sense of relief that I spotted and averted this 'death' in the making.

3 Guinea Pigs

2007-07-20T02:33:00.000-07:00

I have 3 guinea pigs and am moving them into some new cages.

As I do so I have this idea to chop them in half in order to make them "small enough to move". The ideas seems perfectly reasonable so I catch one, and chop it in half.

I move over the top half into the new cage, it keeps scurrying around though it's insides are now clearly visible from it's cleanly dissected trunk (rather like Damien Hurst sculpture the place where it is sliced is clean, precise, open and clearly visible).

I realize instantly that I have made a terrible mistake. I think about using bandage to repair the error and wonder if it can hold the two halves together. I ask someone next to me to help "how can I fix this?" - looking at the cages too I see for the first time that they are horribly small and the whole thing is a complete nightmare.

Fire on the moors

2007-07-20T01:33:00.001-07:00

I am on an open moorland - high up, vast.

It is on fire and I am running, running, running.

I fell myself running but also see myself from above, I see an endless sweeping line of flames traveling at great speed across the moor, seen from this distance I realise it travels faster than I can surely run.

Back in my body I see a squat concrete building ahead - "perhaps I will be safe in there?". I run towards it, it's walls are thick like a war bunker, but even as I head into it, I know that the flames will consume all in the end - even this.

phoenix flames

2007-07-20T01:26:00.001-07:00

I am in a living room with an open fireplace.

It is a ladies house, she may be a relative.

The fireplace is breathing sparks and flames into the living room - they lick out like tongues, blue green flames, hot red sparks - the fire appears to breathe these into the room.

The sight is awesome and I am afraid of being burnt, yet also I sense that I am in the presence of a great and healing power.

Brett and Scarlet

2007-07-20T01:14:00.000-07:00

I see a couple sitting on a very stylish sofa. They are handsome, sophisticated, both have beautiful coal black hair and are well groomed. I think they are called Brett and Scarlet; they give the impression of having finally married after a long and tempestuous affair.

They are at the house of some friends, another married couple. This couple are well groomed also - she is blonde and him a brunette: they are handsome too but somehow a little more bland than Brett and Scarlett.

The evening is polite, the couples sit and chit chat. The women are mute though, lacking in animation, as if something essential might be missing from their character. And the two men, they engage in shallow banter, yet there is an undercurrent of something else, something paranoid and violent - Brett suspects that this husband might be after his wife.

The evening relaxes a little as Brett and Scarlett lie out together on the settee, reveling in one anothers presence. They leave, it is dark and they are driving on an unlit road across a harsh desert like landscape.

Suddenly a car swerves round them and the couple are cut up in flashing headlights and veer off the road. Brett is enraged. He swings the car round on the desert sand looking for the man who cut him up. He is driving wildly in circles, farther and farther from the road in search of this 'other' that is clearly now nowhere to be seen.

I watch him drawing circles in the sand from a distance above (before now I have been inside the car with them) - in a cinematic scene the camera pans back and I see that they are now circling near the edge of a long peninsula overhanging a chasm. I want to shout to save them, but watch helpless as a few seconds later, the car plunges off the edge into the abyss.

the book store (counting pennies...)

2007-07-20T01:07:00.001-07:00

I am in Church Road, Wolverhampton - a street from the neighbourhood where I grew up.

I am in a second hand book store, I am delighting in touching the books, leafing through their pages, taking my time to savour and select that which will bring me the most delight.

I select 3 and take them to the counter - the shop owner is an elderly but robust woman, she has an air of one standing firm on her own, a gentle strength that weathers all storms. I ask her how she does it, how she survives in this trade where "so many other have tried and failed haven't they?"

"Yes" she replies "many have failed; just last week they were clearing out the shop of another woman right nearby here, it was only open a few months before it failed. But as they cleared out the remaining stock, guess what! They found change scattered everywhere throughout the shop! If she had only gathered all of that change together, the shop would have been able to weather the difficult times."

white horse

2007-07-16T04:48:00.000-07:00

I open my eyes in a dream and am face to face with a beautiful white horse.

We are nose to nose and I feel hot steamy breath on my breasts, his nostrils are so soft and I want to stroke them.

I do not touch him, but feel deeply aware of his physical presence, his power, his beauty - he touches my soul with compassion and communicates to me an understanding that reaches to my bones.

I feel blessed by his presence.

Little bird

2007-07-16T04:41:00.000-07:00

I am in the back garden of the house where I grew up and have a big cardboard box. The box is a house for a little bird (maybe a sparrow, or a wren?) that I have. The box has gone all soggy and is sagging, I am trying to sort it out, to make little bird more comfy.

As I am doing so, little bird flies out and escapes, she flies off through an open kitchen window and into the house. My mom (a faded chimera of her and not her 'real' spirit) says we should shut the kitchen window to trap little bird inside.

I consider this for a while, but in my minds eye I see little bird flying for freedom and crashing fatally into the now closed kitchen window so I say "no", it is ok and she will come back to me. At that minute little bird flies out into the sky and circles around.

I hold out my hand and she comes down to rest in it. I feel her little pulsating body and realise that she is cold and so cup my hands around her - she flutters gratefully in my hands for my warmth and care. I look at the soggy nox and think "of course, yes, it is so soggy and damp, and I have put in no materials to make her feel comfy".

I realise that if I line the box with soft things and put in food to eat, that little bird can be free to fly round yet will always return to my care. It is simply a matter of warmth, care, nutrition and a little bit of trust.

Mothers Volcano Room

2007-07-04T08:23:00.001-07:00

I am locked in a basement room with a small group of people; we locked ourselves in to escape something but now we are trapped. There is panic and confusion: we need to get out because we are all terminally ill. Yes, we are all dying, we have a sickness that will soon kill us all and we need to get out to alert the rest of the world to our predicament.

For the first time I notice the walls are throbbing: they pulsate red and orange light, move slowly to the ground, like a lava flow. Patterns emerge and sink back into the flow: flowers and paisley, strangely old fashioned, domestic - mother’s volcano room.

I am distracted from the walls by a terrible roar from outside the door. As loud and impressive as a Lion a terrible creature is at the door and wants to get in. His roar rips through my body and causes a wind to blow in the room: I am gripped by terror and wake up.

Thieves

2007-07-04T08:21:00.000-07:00

I am in an attic room with Steve (a friend and ex partner), hearing noises downstairs I go to investigate. I come across three burglars (they do not see me) and in the dark I try to muster an authoritative voice to command them to leave. I find though (once again) that I have no voice and so return to the attic.

I wake Steve and he descends from the loft to challenge them whilst I remain hidden. Some time later I come down, and find Steve chatting with them! He is reasoning, making friends, rationalizing their actions and forgiving their trespass.

I motion that it is time for them to leave and we all descend the stairs, looking around me I see lots of valuable antique furniture: sideboards, candlesticks and china. “We must be doing well”, I think to myself. I study the three robbers as they walk on ahead: there are two younger men (of no real note) and an older more distinguished gentleman with longish white hair, clothes of faded wealth.

I see that the thieves are drunk, they engage Steve in jovial banter but I feel paranoid that they will steal something on the way out. I try to see into their pockets and at the threshold spot that the old man is indeed carrying something. It is an abstract painting - blue, violet and green – small and slightly tatty (oil on canvass), a battered old sketch pad.

“STOP” I scream, for the first time finding my voice. “GIVE THAT BACK NOW”. The old man seems sheepish, like a small boy caught out - “Amidst all the rich furniture that you have, I didn’t think you would notice this one little thing missing” he says, and puts it down.

I grab hold of it knowing that something very important has been rescued, just in the nick of time.

The Whale

2007-07-04T08:20:00.000-07:00

I find myself plunged suddenly awake into a cold and choppy sea. I splash about confused then hearing men shout I remember the chase and their intention to kill. I begin to swim out to sea but a black and white killer whale bears down upon me, its great jaws gaping open: I stare into the black void feeling sure I have come to my end.

But s/he turns and presents me with a back like a raft and I realise s/he is my friend and wants only to save me! I straddle the great back and grab hold of the rubbery fin, which flexes under my grasp. A spasm of fear grips my thighs, the whale responds and OFF we go!

I can barely breathe as we rush through the water and soon land no longer even exists. We dive down and then surface, dive and then surface - from the dark depths of the ocean to the slate grey mirror of the sky. Together we embark on a dive that is deeper than I have ever experienced before and at that moment I begin to feel fear:

all that I am is rushing darkness and void and a deep intuition telling me which way is up.

I grip tight onto the fin, re-establish the connection of my thighs and wonder ‘should I have trusted so implicitly?’ But down there in the darkness sensing the vastness of the form I know without question that s/he is my friend and I am safe.

The Wave

2007-07-04T08:19:00.000-07:00

I am on holiday by the sea, watching a girl playing on the beach. I know this girl is really I - younger and more vulnerable - I am my own guardian angel looking compassionately on.

She rides the waves allowing them to pick her up from behind, carry her forward and deposit her a few metres down the beach. She is like an aquatic mammal equally at home on land and in the water, slinking back and forth across the shores boundary.

I glance to the horizon and see that a larger wave is approaching. I want to warn her but realise I have no words and am confined to gesture alone. I begin to wave my arms and instinctively she looks to me: through some private sign language I manage to convey to her the danger.

She begins to run for her life - the wave is carrying mud and debris that will smash her small body to a pulp if it catches her. But she is young, fit, her pace and luck is good - she reaches safe ground on some rocks just as the wave crashes in.

The scale of the wave is utterly awe inspiring; energy and form, the pliant watery creature is forced upright into a towering wall.

The Piano

2007-07-04T08:18:00.000-07:00

I am at my childhood home, there is a party going on. The guests are having fun and being creative: one girl has made some wild body jewellery out of heavy nylon rope, woven throughout her hair and all around her body like a thick blue snake. She is sexy and her eyes have the fire of an uninhibited pleasure seeker.

I feel on the outside, I see myself dull and boring. I want to join in but have lost something and must find it before I can. I go into a room on my own shutting the door on the fun; am confronted by piles of boxes filling the room. I know that the thing which I seek is hidden within these boxes; the volume of ‘stuff’ I must search through is overwhelming.

I take a deep breath and begin my hunt, pulling out box after box and emptying their contents. I find a big acoustic base guitar: its body sensual and feminine, a torso made from warm flesh coloured wood. The strings though are not taut. I pluck at them but the dark thick metal wobbles disappointingly, too slack to give voice to the beauty. I lay it to one side for later as I know I will be playing it soon.

I continue aware of nothing except each box and my desperate hunt. I have pulled out so much stuff I wonder how ever it will fit back and realise things will never be the same again. I sense though that I am nearing my target, the thing I have lost is close by and so I make one last ditch effort and recklessly shove all of the crap to either side.

I stand back to see what has been uncovered and there it is, my piano! My beautiful old piano: upright and made from the darkest solid rosewood; a “particularly fine example of its kind” because the blind piano tuner told me so. I recollect small feet in white ankle socks tiptoeing on pedals, tiny hands dancing up and down the length of its ivory keys; a small girl lost within a cathedral of sound whose waves expand and seek to posses every cell of her growing body.

I notice that the lid is closed, that there is only just enough room between boxes to get in and sit down. But it is uncovered and ready – ready to begin.

Diamond Mining

2007-07-04T08:17:00.000-07:00

I am in the cellar of a large building with three men, one of whom seems more special to me than the others. I am drawn by the strange qualities of these men. We have a heavy task to undertake and they are strong: I appreciate their physical presence and am excited by their muscle. But I am aware also that these men are strangely feminine: they are artists and are creative, sensitive types. I find myself pondering their suitability for the task and realize that I need to be firm in my leadership.

The task is this: a man has hidden some treasure in the rocks beyond this basement. The treasure is a beautiful diamond (I can still feel it shining within me now as I write). I lead my team into a cramped and dark tunnel and shut the door behind us. I explain that the diamond is embedded within the rocks somewhere beyond this tunnel. It is very close nearby, I sense the presence of its beauty: but we do not know exactly where it is and so will have to tunnel blindly.

There are risks in our task. Once we begin to tunnel we cannot return until we have found our treasure. There is a danger that we may spend the rest of our lives down there in the dark, never finding the thing that we seek.

I ask the team if they are up for it, “YES” they all shout and we turn to the task. But then a strange thing happens: I turn to the man to whom I felt most drawn. We smile at each other and then we lie down. I realise that we must begin our work now – the treasure is so near! – but our hands stroke each other and we float away to a warmer brighter place where all is well and nothing is to be done.

A Fight with the Devil

2007-07-04T08:16:00.000-07:00

I ‘wake up’ lying on my bed with the covers pulled off. I am fighting for my life with an assailant who is unseen and unknown. It is actually not too dark to physically see my assailant: my room is lit orange from a street lamp and blue from my skylight. As I struggle and fight I can see that there is no-BODY there: It is as if the assailant is one and the same as my very own body.

The physical manifestation of the struggle though is very real: I am on my back with my knees and arms drawn up and fight desperately with a force that would pin me back down and make me submit. Time and time again I almost give in but just as my will would give way I discover hitherto unknown ‘backup’ resources of energy and fight.

At one point I wake up: the terrifying thing of this dream is that it is totally lucid and takes place in my own room exactly as it is and without the usual ‘dreamtime’ alterations. I realise (or think) that it is the Devil who I am fighting and that I must not and cannot shy away from this encounter. I order myself straight back to sleep so that I may pursue this encounter once more and prevail.

Later that same night I dream I am dragged from my bed and around on the floor, up the wall. This dream too is lucid but I know it to be only a dream whilst it is happening for the room in which it occurs is not my own.

Later the next day my flat mate tells me I have been screaming in my sleep.

Crow

2007-07-04T08:15:00.000-07:00

I dream that I am a crow.

I look down and study my claws, to the side at black feathers toying with the wind and eager to play.

I stare ahead, crouch down and then leap into the void - the sensation is incredible as I soar into the sky.

The Seatbelt

2007-07-04T08:13:00.000-07:00

I am in a car; someone who resembles my mother (but isn’t) is driving. There are two children in the back and someone who resembles my father (but isn’t).

The step mother (I will call her this for convenience) seems agitated. She says “At the next stop I will pull over and put some shoes on those children, their feet are cold.” I am furious with her for slighting my ability to care for my children (I realise when provoked that those children are mine). “Look” I shout “if you don’t think I am looking after them then just say”.

“OK then, I don’t think you look after them.”

Infuriated I grab the children from the back, a baby and toddler. I put socks and shoes first on the baby, then on the toddler. But the socks are too thick and the shoes too small and the baby leads me to believe that she is perfectly warm and would rather not wear these awkward encumbrances (she communicates this telepathically with a smile).

I put them back in the rear of the car, the toddler stands next to the amiable but weak step father who is playing with the baby. As I look at them I realise that now they really are in danger: the stepmother who drives this car is senile (I start to tell her so but then chicken out) and now my children are travelling in the back without their safety belts: I picture them travelling at speed towards the windscreen.

I become horribly aware that an emergency stop is imminent; having wrapped them against false fears of cold I wonder if they will survive the real threat.

The Room is Spacious and Bright 2

2007-07-04T08:12:00.000-07:00

I am with some people in a strange house and we go down into the basement. The space that awaits us is claustrophobic and filled with boxes, rubble and dust. There is a feeling of neglect and of ruin; there is a hint of danger as it might collapse and swallow us up.

We stand there and gaze, dazed by the state of this place: how could anyone let it get so bad? But as we sense the sorrow of the space, so the space senses our presence and begins to transform, simply through the act of being looked at.

Within a few breaths the room is spacious and bright and has four large glass walls that are misted up. As I peer through the formlessness I see rain, catch glimpses of open moors and the deep earthy scent of peat.

The moors are inviting me out, all I have to do they seem to say is open the windows:

and step out.

The Ocean Painting 2

2007-07-04T08:09:00.000-07:00

I am with a middle-aged woman, we are guests in someone else’s house: she is quite large, motherly, but insecure too and seeks my advice.

She tells me she paints: it is something she does on “her own, unrecognised” and has “no outlet for her work”. I remember she has shown me a painting the day before - a colourful abstract piece it was ok but not amazing.

She pulls out another recently completed painting; it is morning time and we are outside, I feel fresh and bright in the early light. Her husband is there too and he watches us mutely.

I hold her painting and look into it: a small picture of a grey stormy ocean, oil on canvass board. I find myself becoming absorbed in the tumultuous sea, rolling with the waves and cast about by the wind. I sense and see rocks rising up out of the water, jagged primal forms: I become the beginning of time, the emergence of land.

I recognise in the work a memory of my own work, a picture that I painted when I first returned to college as a mature student in 1996. My painting was huge: a blue and red sea crashing against rocks, a giant orange globe spinning and throbbing in a psychedelic sky. It was quite abstract and dramatic and it tried to express the beginning of time.

What impresses me with her painting is that it doesn’t try to do anything – it simply is.

I tell the woman how much I like the picture, because it is so real. She is pleased but tells me she is frustrated: she wants to know how can she get her work ‘out there’, how can she earn a living from this. I sense that this question has something to do with her pride.

I start to tell her of the things she can do – she can buy the Artists and Writers Yearbook, which lists greetings card manufacturers who will print her work. Or she can subscribe to the arts magazine ‘a-n’ which has lots of opportunities for exhibiting.

But as I tell her all this I wonder in my soul ‘how would this beautiful painting translate into a greetings card? Wouldn’t it’s magic be lost?’ I feel uncertain about the opportunities that I am trying to ‘sell’ to her and my voice sounds hollow as I speak.

Is it possible I wonder to translate her beautiful painting into a commercial product without losing its essence?

I climb into a car with her and the (still silent) husband. We begin the journey home though I realise as I gaze at the scenery passing by that I don’t know where this is.

White Rabbit's Cage

2007-07-04T08:08:00.000-07:00

I have a big, strong and beautiful white rabbit; it is a somewhat wild rabbit, not at all tame or domestic. The rabbit is absolutely furious for some reason that I cannot fathom - agitated it circles and thumps its back leg angrily on the ground.

Then I notice the cause of its distress – it has just broken free from a cage that is cruelly small and claustrophobic. The rabbit stamps its paw some more and leads me to understand that a man had put it in the cage. The man was well meaning but he couldn’t see that the cage was far to small for this rabbit - “How silly of him” I say to the rabbit.

So being an industrious little girl and in sympathy with the rabbit’s predicament I set to and begin to build a bigger and better cage from the material of the old. I work hard at my task and climb inside the new cage to line it with fresh hay. Whilst inside though I am gripped by claustrophobic fear and realise that although bigger and better – I have simply succeeded in making another cage.

Disconcerted I continue with my task, having come so far it would be silly to give up: but all I can think is how horrible it must be to live in a cage and wonder how I can so betray white rabbit’s trust.

Merely Decorative

2007-07-04T08:06:00.000-07:00

I am back at art school with some of my old friends: Vicky (now my step mother) is there and Judith too. My friends at the time were mostly women, mostly in their fifties.

Vicky is asking the teacher about her painting (he is white, middle aged and authoritative in his half moon specs):

“Should I put in shading, should I be painting the shadows?” She asks him.

“Well it depends” he replies “the shadows make it real, without these your painting is just decoration, it is merely decorative.”

He shows us a small oil painting of a pink orchid: it is deeply shaded - almost bruised it is so dark - and as I stare I feel enveloped in its folds.

Vicky returns to her painting and considers the teachers remarks. I can tell from her shoulders that she is annoyed and feels somehow bruised by them.

The Finest Sable Brushes

2007-07-04T08:04:00.000-07:00

I am with Vicky, my stepmother, she is an artist too - a painter - we studied at University together.

I giver her a gift, something to do her oil painting with - a set of the finest sable brushes. But they are even finer than this: they are sacred and we both gaze at them in awe as if at some holy relic.

Under our gaze though the brushes begin to transform. As if some veil had been pulled back they reveal themselves to be nothing but a bundle of cheap pound shop brushes – stubby, frayed, their coarse horsehair bristles all split and splayed. We realize that we were both mistaken as to their true worth.

Vicky looks at me confused and disappointed - “Why so many brushes” she asks “I didn’t want so many”. I say something about having plenty to choose from, to use and to discard – I sense though that this divine gift has become for us both a problem to be disposed of.

The Room is Spacious and Bright

2007-07-04T07:24:00.000-07:00

I have to move house and am packing up all of my things. I have almost packed everything and it is nearly time to go but I am feeling very anxious - I do not have a new house to move into yet.

I go out to look at a possible place I have seen. I knock on the front door, it opens and inside the rooms are spacious and bright. There are large south facing window that flood the room with light and everything is laid out in a neat and orderly fashion. It feels warm and homely.

But a woman is there already: blonde and beautiful she is older than I and seems more confident and competent. She tells me “sorry, but the house is already taken”. She is very sympathetic but I fell devastated and angry like a child who has been wronged.

Love and Fear

2007-07-04T07:23:00.000-07:00

a fragmented dream memory:

I have a book in my hand: its cover is matt, ochre; it is quite small and thin, maybe A5 size. As I open the book its pages seem to glow, they radiate white light.

The book is beautiful. But I am also gripped with terror: I know David (an ex lover) has written it and that it will reveal to me the ‘truth’ that I am afraid to see.

I open it with trepidation and hardly dare read what is written within. My eyes flicker erratically across the first sentence, which goes something like this:

“This is a document detailing the earthly paradise, the paradise here on earth, created by myself and my wife Amanda. We will go on to discuss…”

I break down and can hardly continue.

“…The tale of our supreme happiness…”

I feel gutted and close the book unable to bear any more. My vision has been stolen: someone else hijacked it. I am betrayed and more than that, I am terrified.

Little Girl 2

2007-07-04T07:22:00.000-07:00

I settle down to sleep knowing that the little girl is now safe.

Gradually I become aware of voices in our room. As my eyes become accustomed to the grey light I realise that there is also a middle-aged couple in a double bed on the other side of the room near some large windows.

The woman seems larger and more forward than her husband who sounds as if he is hen pecked. She is complaining too loudly to him about other people being in the same room as them and it is obvious that she is not happy.

Eventually I can bear it no longer: I sit up in bed and angrily shout “Look, if you don’t want us here just say and we will leave – OK!”

“Oh no, no, no we didn’t mean you, it’s ok we don’t want you to leave” says the woman as she comes over to the bed and sweeps me up in her arms (much as I did with the little girl).

She sits on my bed hugging and rocking me gently back and forth. She keeps on holding and holding, I want to break free and say “OK! ENOUGH!” but I find that I do not have the will to break free of her grasp.

All of my energy departs, I hang limp and inert within her arms: I remain locked in that eternal, copious embrace.

Little Girl

2007-07-04T07:21:00.000-07:00

I am at someone else’s house: a rich house with expensive pale carpets and flock wallpaper. I am walking down a hall wondering about the owners when I come across a little girl playing on her own. She comes towards me and I realise that she is tired and needs to go to bed. I sweep her up in my arms feeling so much love as I wonder how her parents could not have noticed her need.

I tell her I will put her to bed and head to a bedroom as she enfolds me with lanky legs and tired arms. In the bedroom I try to put her down and for the first time notice that her bottom half is naked. As I try to prise apart her limpet embrace I find that her flesh has stuck to mine and I cannot remove her. I have to peel us apart and feel rising disgust as I recognise the smell of the stale urine that has glued us together.

I notice a bath filled with hot water and bubbles so I bathe her all over with white soap and dry her with soft white towels that swallow her up. I tuck her into a bed of white cotton sheets and stroke her to sleep in her newly sweet scented, soft and fluffy body.

I climb into a bed in the same room…

The Festival

2007-07-04T07:20:00.000-07:00

I am at an outdoor festival.

There is a man there that I love – I deny him.

There is a man there that I once loved but no longer do (at least not in ‘that’ way), he is leaving me and I am afraid to let him go.

I wander around the festival alone. It is night and scattered across the dark fields are inviting large round tents lit from inside by warm lights and laughter; I am the only person outside in the field.

I wander into a tent but when inside I see there is nothing there so I leave. Some people pass me on their way in and I say “Don’t go in, there is nothing inside.” They ignore me and pay the entrance fee and I hear their laughter from inside the tent.

I continue to wander and see some food vendors. I go over and look because I am hungry but they only sell hot dogs and other things that I don’t like. As I look around the field of tents I feel indecisive and lost and I cannot make up my mind which one to enter so I just hover in the dark.

I decide to go ‘home’ – back to the tent where my family is. I find it difficult to walk in the increasingly dark and muddy field and so discard a walking stick and some bags I am carrying, realising that they are weighing me down.

My Dad is there and gives me pocket money to go buy some biscuits.

Mallard Ducks

2007-07-04T07:19:00.002-07:00

I am watching the most beautiful flock of birds. They are like mallard ducks, only much larger, more elegant and graceful in flight. They are ‘swarming’ against a red sunset sky – they swoop rise and dive in breathtaking formations.

I become aware that I have a weapon with me: a spray can that will kill with waves of sound. I wonder why I am here to shoot these beautiful creatures but know that I am. They swoop towards me; iridescent green bellies flashing and brown wings raising a wind.

It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

Just when their formation has reached a crescendo I find myself involuntarily raising my arm. I spray my puny weapon into the flock and a high pitched wailing noise is released. Four big ducks thud to the floor and I run over to them, horrified at my actions. They lie entwined on the soft peaty ground.

I am devastated by their fall from the sky and start screaming and crying for them to be well again. Three of the ducks revive quickly and rejoin the flock. But the fourth still lies there so I pick it up and cradle it in my arms. It is soft, warm: a long black velvety neck hangs over my arm, a beak gently but reproachfully bites me.

Black Rock

2007-07-04T07:19:00.001-07:00

I am at sea again, on a large boat that is cutting through the water at a tremendous rate: I stand at its prow. I see something appearing on the horizon, as we move closer I realise it is a large black rock rising up out of the waves. I realise that we are on a collision course and start shouting to raise the alarm.

The captain turns the engines to full speed reverse and we come to a halt only just in time, grazing the surface of the rock as we turn. Everyone on board congratulates me: we would surely all have died had I not seen the danger ahead. As we cruise around the base of the black rock, which is the size of a mountain, rivulets of water pour off its surface: evidence of its recently submerged state.

The rock is black, dense and razor sharp – like granite maybe. But is also is shot through with shining metallic threads: iridescent lightening bursts of precious metal flashing throughout the darkness of its body.

We get off the boat and explore the surface of this new land.

Astral Flying

2007-07-04T07:17:00.000-07:00

I find myself walking down a street and I realise instantly that I am dreaming. I decide to have fun and allow my pace to quicken: allow myself to fly.

I travel smoothly about six feet above ground level down the centre of the road; at first I feel scared, afraid I will loose control and go too fast or too high. Then I remember to trust and let my body surrender to the experience: fear is resistance to what is happening, resistance breeds more fear.

I let go and the experience becomes beautiful, exhilarating; I am consumed by a tremendous sense of wellbeing. I look around me at the road signs and try to ascertain where I am. I see a high street of the type of small to medium sized town that commonly gets swallowed by a larger neighbouring city.

I reach a steep windy hill leading out of the town. As I begin to climb I realize that it is steeper than I expected and a slight feeling of panic arises. I have the sense that I am heading out into the countryside but the hill is too steep for me and so I blackout.

Angel Eyes

2007-07-04T07:16:00.000-07:00

I find myself seated with a blank sheet of paper in front of me, a brush in my hand. I have watercolour paints on my right and a pencil too. I pick them up and begin working (I notice that I use my right hand which is strange as I am left handed).

I am not sure what to do - I have no image in mind – so I begin to paint content just to see what will happen. A portrait begins to emerge; I find my attention drawn in by translucent flesh and an elegant jaw line.

A mans face is forming, he is beautiful: I look into his eyes and feel myself falling in love for the very first time. I think how he looks like an angel.

I become aware of a distraction off to my left. My father is there and he keeps asking me something. I try to give him some of my attention to see what it is that he wants. He is prodding me in the side saying, “Do one of those drawings you do, you know, like a caricature”.

He keeps on prodding me “go on, go on” and I find myself loosing faith in those beautiful eyes. I try to think what it is Dad wants, I have a vague recollection of what it is he seeks: but my attention is now divided and I am rendered unable to act. In a rage I throw my sketchpad across the room with a scream that rips me in two.

The Bank

2007-07-04T07:15:00.000-07:00

I am in a bank, on my way to collect money, it has been a good profitable trip. In the queue waiting, between roped off barriers, I suddenly start to float up to the ceiling. Some helpful people try to pull me back down but to no avail.

A ‘helpful’ man starts to remove the ceiling tiles revealing a dark black space. I scream at him “ no don’t do that, if I go in there I will never get out!” I grasp for the barriers to pull myself down but the dream fades with me pressed against the ceiling, fighting to stay out for the black attic space.

The strong buck rabbit

2007-07-04T07:13:00.000-07:00

Last night I woke up in a dream to find that I had furry puffed cheeks and snub nose, whiskers and big ears that I could twitch. The 'spirit' of the large buck that we shot (Johnny with gun and me with camera) transmitted the following information to me:

That he was imparting to me an improved sense of smell (I have an impaired sense of smell from reoccurring sinus infections as a teenager) and hearing (my hearing is also slightly impaired as a result of excessive wax leading to infections) so that I could better sense the way ahead.

He also reminded me that my thighs are strong and I can run as fast as I need; he said I needed to be less mean with myself and not ashamed or afraid of abundance. Finally he said that as a strong and healthy young buck, he would be leaving with me a increased desire for procreation.

The Sea Picture

2007-07-04T07:11:00.000-07:00

Three dreams in the same night:

I dream of a picture frame, framing the sea. The water starts to pour through – the whole ocean, gushing out of this one small ornate plaster work gold leaf picture frame.

I am in a room in a house (the ocean outside now), I am trying to lock myself in as 3 huge she walruses are outside trying to get in, I am not sure if they are friend or foe. They are fat, copious she walruses (sometimes they are black women) – friend or foe, mad even?

Dead rabbits - I dream I have some dead rabbits, I bury them in a shallow grave under some moss – the moss forms itself into a word, what was it? I cannot remember.

I have several dreams that night also of small white delicate spring flowers growing in the moss. They are beautiful.

Three pairs of shoes

2007-07-04T07:07:00.000-07:00

I am working for an old woman, she is very particular – picky even one might say - I seem to remember though that I like her. I decide and tell her though that I don’t want (need) to work for her anymore and I leave the tower block that she lives in.

On my journey from her place I find a pair of white, black and red shoes. The white have gold lacey patterns. The black are lacey and ornate too, but they are also sturdy – of the kind my nan might have worn when she was young, stylish but practical.

I admire the white and black shoes and take them with me, though I do not like the red and leave them behind.

I find a white and gold top, I look for a similar skirt but cannot find one and feel that the outfit is not complete. I also have a lacey black shawl.

All of the clothes are old fashioned and used, but they are also ‘new’ – somehow they are both! The top has a laundry bag around it, as if it has been laundered ready for my use (it is not disimilar to bridal wear).

The Oil Rig

2007-07-04T07:05:00.000-07:00

I am at sea on an oil rig like structure. Woofa (my dog) is there. It is chaotic conditions. We need to drop anchor and an old fisherman salty sea dog comes to show me how. Big anchor on the end of chains, he throws the anchor into the water. He tells me to hold onto the end of the chain but I loose it and he says ‘don’t worry, it will raise to the surface naturally anyway.’

Woofa jumps into the sea, and she is, I know in my minds eye, swimming around on the sea bed (she is in a sad sorry state and I want to protect her again). I worry that the salty old sea dog will drop an anchor and trap her down there – he brushes this fear aside. She surfaces (as she always seems to) and I am so pleased and relieved to see her.

She is grey now, the colour of the ocean and I can hardly see her against the grey choppy sea. There are more small dogs on the rig now, they are young, fit and free – they don’t need my care and they run around and play independently.

Fixing a Car

2007-07-04T07:03:00.000-07:00

Mark (my brother) is trying to fix a car. He is an adept technician and has almost done it, but one remaining fault perplexes him. He has a cylinder (big) with 6 lights and one of them (the outer one?) has been vandalized and has stopped all of the lights from working. He has got them all to work again however, except the last outer light.

Dad goes off and gets some things, mark is sceptical thinking dads solution won’t work, but dad brings back exactly the right thing – mark is so grateful he spontaneously hugs him.

I am so happy I nearly cry.

Fossil Fish

2007-07-04T07:02:00.000-07:00

I am looking up into the sky, I see thick white cloud billowing, swirling. The cloud begins to clear, forming into a funnel shape above me and I look up into an enormous tunnel revealing blue sky at its tip. Swimming in the growing circle of blue is a shoal of silver fish/birds – like fish, with wings. Their formations convey intelligence - flashing patterns, words, each word flashes by just before I can grasp it’s meaning – they are expressing something beyond comprehension, I can see the intelligence in their formations, but it is a beyond understanding.

It is like a moment of revelation, a visitation of angels.

Then the clouds close back over, darker now, like granite rock. Falling from them, swimming underneath, are enormous fish, shaped like big skates, each as large as a ship. They are transparent and merge with the dark rock grey clouds behind - they merge in the same way that a fossil merges with the rock.

It is as if fossils had woken up, swimming around, exploring their rocky bed - awakening a forgotten prehistoric intelligence.

The Creative Prison

2007-07-04T07:01:00.000-07:00

I am in a prison, I am the artist in residence.

I have to produce a work, but the work I have been doing is scattered all over the place and in a mess. I just can’t seem to get a handle on it.

Then I realise that I am making things difficult for myself, with no deadline, no subject, no focus, no topic – I realise that I have forgotten all of the essentials needed to create.

The Clown

2007-07-04T06:59:00.000-07:00

2 Dreams:

I found myself at some kind of ‘car’ show – maybe it was a BMW event, in any case it was very prestigious. I had sat at the front directly in front of the main speaker of the day, a very prestigious man. I looked up to a big plasma screen and saw that I was ‘in the frame’ right next to the big man – I sat smiling and proud thinking “all of my friends will see me and be impressed”. I saw also that I was young, sitting upright - a very well behaved schoolgirl.

Next it was night-time, after the event described above. I was in bed trying to sleep but I was oh so hot! I tossed and turned and just could not get comfy, I felt suffocated by the big quilt engulfing me but did not seem to want to cast it off.

I started to look round the room from my bed. I was in an old amusement arcade, part of a fair ground. All of the lights were off, except once again for a big flat Plasma screen, a robotic voice chatted away quietly from this and I understood that it was the car designers working late into the night.

I lay on my side, I felt myself breathing, my eyes were (trans)fixed on something in the dark. As the darkness lifted I realised that I was gazing straight into the eyes of a man.

He reclined on the floor opposite me, he seemed tired, exhausted – I wondered why he had just flopped there on the floor and did not make him-self comfortable. I lay on my side and gazed deeper into his eyes. They were silver blue grey, beautiful, so beautiful. As I took in more of him, I realised that his face was painted white - he was a clown. I saw also that he was so very sad and tears started to pour from my eyes.

I sensed somehow that we were meant to have met, I thought about going over and inviting him into my bed. I saw he was big, strong – I wondered why it was that we weren’t together in bed - just the two of us, in that big amusement arcade.

His gaze moved away from mine. I turned over and over some more, feeling still the sadness in his/my heart. My thoughts got distracted though as I began to wonder if the door was locked – didn’t it look open? I wanted to ask the clown to check, but then it occurred to me that he was big, and much stronger than me. What if he decided just to ‘take’ – to rape me? I started to feel terror and thought it best not to go to sleep - at this point I (really) woke up.

Despite the sadness and fear of this dream, I felt as if I had that night met the deepest part of my soul, far deeper than I had ever touched before - I felt privileged to have journeyed so deep into my being to heal the sadness therein.

I understood the clown to be gypsy / itinerant / Irish: the kind of man who would have a horse. I remembered my Dad saying we have Irish ancestry. I remembered also a conversation I had with a female friend about the nature of masculine / feminine power – how young girls dream of / ride a horse (a symbiotic relationship with a living power) and boys dream of cars (a power relationship dominated by control over an inanimate object).

I went back to sleep imagining myself close to the clown; inviting him over, connecting with him, letting him know that he is loved and welcome. Next I dreamt myself lying in bed, my top half naked and exposed - my arms slung in a deeply relaxed posture above my head. My exposed flesh (armpits, breasts) was being gently caressed as I slept, I heard giggling and realized that angels / pixies / fairies were tickling me with red feathers. I felt blessed, loved and deeply happy.

Underground shelter for homeless women.

2007-07-04T06:55:00.000-07:00

I am in Wolverhampton, in Bantock park with old friends from when I was about 17 / 18. I have got a grant from the arts council to make something, to build a building.

With my friends we enthusiastically start to dig a hole for the building, we are going to make an underground shelter for homeless women. I get the sense also that the shelter may be a place of spiritual growth, a monastery of sorts. It is a daring art project, only I haven’t told the arts council exactly what it is about....

We dig some holes for foundations, we come across blocked pipes swollen with water – we look at how we might burst them – “by lancing them maybe?”

At that point the news comes through that the funding has been suspended because we haven’t been completely honest about our intentions....