THAT DAY

I'm reading Kelly Barnhill's When Women Were Dragons. Women under intolerable pressure snap, transform, flame, fly away... It's an angry, relentless book, and our narrator's too slow to see that her relatives & friends aren't being carried off by dragons, but becoming them.

But then, I was just as blind for just as long. I sensed auras for decades before I faced that the strange stuff I picked up from people wasn't deduced from what I saw or heard, but a sixth sense I lacked words for. Only once I threw out my culture's mindset did I really notice the shapes, flows, and scent/taste/color of the energy fields I actually see/feel.

Language really can constrain thought--especially if you're afraid of persecution for telling the truth.

I sure was.

THAT EVENING

I see Turning Red, a Disney/Pixar animation. The title's a pun on blushing--due to a family curse, Mei turns into a huge red panda when upset. Unlike her relatives, she grows to see pandahood as a blessing. Entertaining, but it starts slow, and for me it suffers by comparison with Barnhill's way more serious treatment of how tangled oppression gets--abusers, open bigots, closet bigots, unconscious bigots, and systemic discrimination both explicit & hidden.

In contrast, Turning Red keeps it narrow and bland--it acknowledges family and peer pressures but ignores societal outrages--as always with Disney/Pixar! Each film seems innocuous, but en masse, they blame the victims, their friends & families--never peers, mentors, bosses or the rich and powerful. They steer you to think only personal changes matter. That is, they lie--by omission.

THAT NIGHT

I'm on Mission Street, San Francisco. The parade that opens Carnaval is strutting by. But the view from here is... awkward.

See, I'm in a weird loading-dock being used as a fair booth. Well, misused. It's dark as a cave, and the door got stuck near-shut--the opening has low clearance, maybe half a meter, cutting off my view if I stand, even if I sit!

The only way I can see more than tires and ankles outside is by bending over and peering between my legs, upside down.

So what do I see? Strange customers!

A centaur mom whose adolescent daughter's dancing to the salsa band rolling by.

A shaggy Icelandic pony whose powerful aura says person not animal.

Another... horse? Nope, a unicorn with an ignore-me spell on her horn so she can pass without harassment from hunters. Again, a person.

Some of them are sexy. Okay, a LOT of them.

But can't I see them and talk and dance with them right side up?

WHAT'S IT MEAN?

• Music, crowd, furs, look upside down between legs: the concert at climax of Red Panda
• Sexy nonhuman girls: huh? Those pandas were not my type. The dragons in When Women Were...? I don't think so.
• Can only see out from upside down: dreamwork maybe? It takes a disorienting perspective to let you see out of your cultural/linguistic box.
• Dock: 1: a pun on "doc"? As in, obsessing on illness. I had to, most of my adult life--chronically ill. Now that I'm better, ground-in habits still narrow my view of life. 2: Plato's Cave! There's a big, joyful, magical world outside the shadowy cave of consensus reality.
• Fear I'd be unwelcome: I got shunned & bashed in school as a kid. After a lot of therapy I feel fairly safe in crowds. But the dream's warning I still have work to do--dancing and flirting with strangers still scares me--I expect rejection and even harassment.
• Strange but sexy creatures: This is San Francisco! Full of cute weirdos who won't bat an eye at my little quirks.
• ACTION: walk out of the cave and have fun! Plato can't herd you back in. Plato's dead.

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