THAT DAY

For over a decade I've been building Capsica, a virtual world whose average temperature is exactly midway between freezing and boiling: 50°C, 122°F. Juuuuust right! Today I finished roughing in the last regional tour, the last placenames, the last maps. The skeleton's done. Next will be scenery & portraits...

But don't I deserve any rest?

THAT EVENING

Watch Brokenwood (a New Zealand mystery series). At a writers' retreat, the teacher's killed. One suspect's a vain social influencer, kinda sexy, kinda ridiculous.

Then The Marlow Murder Club (BBC mystery miniseries). Judith the de facto leader of the club figures out who's terrorizing the village... but won't tell friends OR cops, just sits home alone waiting to confront him alone... because THAT makes so much sense.

THAT NIGHT

I dream of sexy deer people in the woods--a doe and her adolescent girl-fawns (two, I think). They're all using cell phones to talk with friends or media scroll, ignoring each other--and their surroundings. "Bad idea to ignore predators" I think. A selfish voice adds "And you won't notice potential mates--like me."

When I 'wake', I like the image (and its lesson) so I sketch it--pencil, then color wash, on paper. But I think "I need to find a larger wood panel or big sheets of paper to render fully; this sketch is too small, can't show detail." Go look for something bigger... I find a big classroom (or an art gallery?) with high ceilings and empty white walls. An artist is hanging up big acrylic paintings. Well, sketches--they look unfinished.

She's my mom! Alive again.

What does her new series of pictures show? Impressionistic woods... full of deer! Mothers and fawns.

No, no cell phones. But still.

Not that my deer-dream was predictive. I know, if only in a background way, that both deer-scenes are on the same reality level--probably both dreams. Not quite lucid, but aware enough that I recall "Last night I had twin furry dreams too, just about cat people, not deer." And I false-woke from a first cat dream into a second, just like this pair of deer-dreams.

These paired dreams suggest they aren't about cats or deer, but something they have in common--introversion? sensuality? wildness?

I wake again, and realize all that waking dream-interpretation was part of the dream.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Sexy deer: on Deviantart, saw some pictures of sexy deer people by The Walternate.
• Mom & adolescent daughters adorable but withdrawn: on the Marlow Murder Club, the vicar's wife & her daughter. And son. And husband. They all take her for granted; time-short, they never really talk.
• Phone addiction: on Brokenwood a workshop confiscates writers' phones. One steals it back, can't survive even a weekend retreat without it!
• Ignoring predators in the woods: on Marlow Murder Club, the leader figures out who the killer is, lures him to her, but doesn't call the cops to arrange backup or rescue. Weird and stupid.
• False wake, waking scene resembles previous dream: I occasionally get this odd pattern, where a dream appears to predict waking events, but then the waking scene turns out to be a dream too! These pseudo-psychic dreams aren't mocking the idea of ESP--I have plenty of truly predictive (or if you prefer, wildly synchronistic/coincidental) dreams too. So what are these teases? I think they're pre-lucid dreams, or rather attempts by the dream to prompt lucidity. It works, here; I do (hazily) realize both scenes are dreams, recall two more (real) dreams, and take a stab at interpreting them--all in my sleep! My brain deserves overtime pay.
• Need big panel/paper:
  1. To reupholster my soft sculpture/plushie/giant sex toy Fiveheart Unicorn, I'll need a big corkboard or plywood sheet to pin the pattern on.
  2. The dream's prompting me to draw big. I usually sketch on printer paper or similar sizes; when I color & shade on screen, I often make it just 1280 pixels wide; it speeds up response times and keeps files small. But this dream wants the option of close-ups, so draw a higher-resolution page!
• My mom the artist resembled a wild deer: a wary introvert, preferred wilderness to people.
• Isolation: Inside the dream, I was struck by the deer's beauty and embarrassed by how sexy I found them. But does that mean it's about sex? The dream itself seemed clear that it was about isolation--and probably the solitude my mom role-modeled. Ever since Covid, I've stayed mostly home, expressed myself mostly on the web, through art. Am I so different from a phone-addicted deer, neglecting family, friends, possible mates... and predators?

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sh - Si-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites