I am in a backcountry area, climbing up an incredible wall of stone that has been eroded into the most amazing shapes--rounded shapes, small arches--very intricate. The face is steep, yet there are enough places to put hands and feet so progress is possible. I am very high up and I can look far around me and far below.

So I carefully lower my feet down and feel for good footholds. It is hard to see what I'm doing, but I am able to continue down and very shortly I am at the bottom--much more quickly than I had hoped. Perhaps I was not so high after all!

I talk with the people on the ground. One woman says "I'm reminded of some rock areas in Arizona, but there it was more of a sloping rock face, not so straight up as here." There is some talk of a nearby town and how the air quality is affected by a certain practice the young people have of starting and stopping their cars as they procede down the street.

I ask "is it a kind of lowrider parade?"

"Not really--it's more like gunning the motor and then suddenly stopping, trying to make the person behind run into you."

Now we are driving in the town. Smoke billows ahead of us--what has happened? Then a trolley car flies through the air and crashes to the ground a ways in front of us, crushing everyone inside plus people that it landed on. I think a second huge vehicle comes crashing down. What horrible things are going on?

EDITOR'S NOTES

Two recreations, both risky. One danger's averted by prompt, mindful descent; the other blows up beyond anyone's worst fears. What's being warned against, here? Inconstancy of some kind, unpredictability, testing other's alerness and self-control? Given the mindfulness that saves the dreamer in the first part, I'm tempted to claim it's carelessness; but the bizarre game of stopping abruptly, deliberately making others prevent a crash, seems more than inattention.

Is it a pun on braking? Breaking hearts? That ends in breaking bones and lives.

But if you've read Jenny's other dreams here, you'll suspect another interpretation: reckless adolescent games causing a bloody crash sounds like something Jenny's dreamt of before: the Bush Administration's war in Iraq.

On the other hand, consider Climbing Down the Pinnacles, dreamed seven years earlier--you'll find the same themes, even the same imagery. Whatever these dreams address, it's long-standing indeed.

--Chris Wayan

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