The scene takes place in a zoo that is also a menagerie.

Before my very eyes, a lion leaps out of an ornamental pool and claws its trainer.

The scene resembles a heraldic figure or, better yet, a symbolic image in a book of alchemy

In the morning I learn that during the previous night a tiger had escaped from the Amar Circus, whose tent was at that point pitched not far from my house.

EDITOR'S NOTES

Leiris was friends with most of the Surrealists, and his dreams show it. So, often, does his daily life, nearly as weird as the dreams. This isn't the only experience he considered psychic; see below.

ESP skeptics argue, justifiably, that a car crash or a loved one dying is a common event. Thousands of crashes and deaths every day; millions of dreams every night; of course a few coincide! But does coincidence hold, when both dream and waking event are rare--indeed, bizarre?

SOURCE: Nights as Day, Days as Night by Michel Leiris (1961; 1987 translation by Richard Sieburth) p. 61. Original entry untitled. Digital sketch is also mine; I tried to echo the pointillism of Seurat's circus paintings, which Leiris would certainly have seen--and been reminded of.

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