In need of money, I hire myself out as a bull in a corrida. As the papers are being signed, the impresario insists that I undergo an inspection to make sure that I indeed have the five horns stipulated by the contract; he has after all guaranteed that he will furnish a "bull with five horns."

Two of these horns are supposedly on my head; two more are the protrusions of my shoulder blades which the impresario verifies by touching them. My wife is present and I tell her it gives me the chills to be touched there, just below my nape, on the very spot where the death-blow will fall.

She says to me: "It's just a lousy morning you'll have to get through. Once it's all over, you'll feel fine..."

I get incensed: "Once it's all over, I'll be dead!" Beside myself with rage, I shout at both of them: "You don't give a shit about me! I'm not going to fall for this!"

And I add: "I'd rather take my chances as a bullfighter!" The contract will not be signed and the dream ends there.

Almost everybody to whom I have recounted this dream has asked me where my fifth horn was located.

EDITOR'S NOTE

Leiris consistently dreams in long motifs with variations--and Five-Horned Bull is the last of a decades-long chain. Seven years earlier, he'd dreamed of a corrida--but in that dream he was the Bullfighter, and the bull was a balloon!

SOURCE: Nights as Day, Days as Night by Michel Leiris (1961; 1987 translation by Richard Sieburth) p.152-3.

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