A woman leads me through a hidden door into a mansion I always wanted to explore. We sneak through secret passages, and emerge from a fake bookshelf. The halls are empty, but I sense someone's at home.

I wonder if they're in a session right now, down in the dungeon.

You see, this is the home of a mom and her tweenage daughter, who have a favorite game they bond over. They interrogate and 'torture' a victim to get 'information'--though it's not real torture, just B&D with friends, really. Who get off on being tied up and forced to tell the painful truth.

I can't criticize. It's consensual.

I think.

I hope.

I'm not into bondage even if it IS consensual, but I find it reassuring that this girl can take something so bizarre in stride. My weirdness is nothing next to her mom's; I'll be able to relax around her.

It doesn't hurt that she's adorable. Way underage, so I can't date her, but my intuition says she's important for me to know, longterm; she's sort of a portal, one of those people with a knack for introducing people who become best friends or soulmates. Maybe she'll know someone older who's right for me?

Not sure--but I know she matters. I never know why I need to know someone, just that I do. Or, sadly, and more often, that I don't.

Later. Inquisitor Girl and I are friends now. She and her best friend and I are waiting in a long line on the driveway of the little suburban home I grew up in. Sit and talk on the brick rim of a long raised strawberry bed; I remember planting those as a little kid.

We're going on a trip--a strange trip.

We're waiting to step through a big metal ring, up at the street end of the driveway. A teleportation gate! But the line is slow--after all, each destination must be verified clear for arrival, or... BOOM!

So we have a while to talk.

Interesting. All three of us turn out to have fathers who tend to get obsessed; once a project's started, they stay up all night. All three dads even go to the same gym, with a big climbing wall, and once started they just gotta top that wall. No matter how it hurts later.

So that's why I feel so comfortable with these two! Big age difference, but similar tasks--to undo the same bad training. Completionism!

Again I feel turned on. The excitement's not directed AT these two, but THROUGH them, as if I sense they'll lead me to a soulmate--or, just as important, teach me how to open up to a soulmate...

Not just portals themselves, but showing me how to be one.

We reach the head of the line, present our coordinates, and step through to...

• Interrogations: just saw the BBC detective show Vera; she's a ruthless questioner who demands the truth even if it hurts. I couldn't do her job. Too squeamish.
• Tween girl: unlike anyone on Vera; I suspect she's a side of me who my conscious dismisses as childish or immature, but who's really unflappable--seen it all! Possibly dreaming itself.
• Consensual inquisition: Though why Dreaming and her mysterious Mom (Sleep?) would be into B&D, I dunno... Oh! The difficult, slow detective work of dreaming. Peeling off glib generic interpretations to bare awkward, personal truths! Painful as it sometimes is, I do consent to it.
• "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!": soon as I tried to sketch the dream, this T-shirt appeared with Monty Python's notorious non sequitur line... Torture into farce. Or, in the case of B&D, into therapeutic sex play. Oog. A sleazy model of dreamwork--but maybe better than Jungian solemnity. Or neuroscience's insistence dreams are just housekeeping. I don't think so--ze French Maid dusting ze brain is cosplaying--without panties.
• Her friend: If one girl's Dreaming, the other might be Waking--that other mysterious mental state making no sense...
• The home I lived in from age 2-9: parental values? But what specific brainwashing am I escaping from at last?
• Strawberries: in my dreams they often mean desire and pleasure--little sweet flashes hidden under the leaves. Under the skirt.
• The gate-connection must be clear or it all blows up: echoes the Tween Inquisitor with a knack for lining up compatible souls. A lot to consider, so it takes time, like Vera's painful chipping away polite English evasion & rationalization, down to the truth.
• Through the gate: Maturity? Taking care to get the connection right suggests it's love. Or spiritual freedom.
• Our completionist dads: true about my dad, but I only see it now, after the dream coined the word! My dad inadvertently taught me projects have needs. False! I have needs; projects don't. Projects are dead.
• I wake up feeling achy as if I overworked, yet I didn't spend much time working today.
• ACTION 1: Stop to enjoy idle talk and small flirtations. You never know where they'll lead--here, to insight about my dad's lingering influence.
• ACTION 2: Beware completionism! When tired/sore/fidgety, rest/switch. Let my BODY, not the PROJECT, decide. And I'm not clear how, but freeing myself from completionism may open me up to love.
• ACTION 3: be patient when figuring out who I like. Getting to the truth takes time. And if I hurry, cut corners... BOOM!

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