A rainy night in my parents' house. My sister Miriel and I are here alone. She's already in bed, really just the fold-out couch in the living room. She's calls "I heard someone prowling outside." A little of her fear rubs off; she's psychic after all. So I go round and search the house. No one's gotten in, but a lot of the sliding glass doors were unlocked.

I return to the living room and see something faint but peculiar: the hills above the East Bay are glowing a faint gold. It can't be the last rays of the sunset squeaking thru the storm clouds: it's been full night for hours. But the night can't be over yet... CAN IT? Have we really stayed up all night? Low, steady light of the right color though. The sky over the Central Valley must be clear! It's predawn!

I point it out to Miriel, but she can't see it from her bed. I say "Well, it's faint--try turning off the light." She won't, she's still too scared to risk the dark. I try it, but she keeps turning them on again, behind my back.

Finally I get the room dark and stand at the glass door. Now I can't see a thing! Not ANY lights--not even the streetlights I know are there. No blackout could be this thorough! What is it? Then I realize... my eyes are closed. I was so tired, I unconsciously shut my eyes when the room went dark--navigated by feel. No wonder I can't see the light!

With great effort I open my eyes, and see... nothing still. It makes no sense. Could it be the glass? If foggy or dirty or painted from outside--or if someone's lurking outside, looking in--blocking the light. Impulsively, insanely, I slide the door open.

Rain-scented air, silence, faint starlight... and a breath. Someone's here in the dark, in front of me, blocking the dawn.
Shivering, blind, I reach out... and feel straight hair, on a smallish head, the smooth-skinned face of a girl. Not a child, too tall. She silently allows my touch. Neither of us speaks.

I'm not afraid now. But from the faint trembling in her skin, SHE is. She's hiding, sheltering from the rain on our back porch. As I feel down her body, I can see her faintly now--and know why she's silent, why she's hiding.

She's a centaur. Not with a horse torso, smaller and lighter-built, more like a deer or unicorn. About my height: we see eye to eye. As the predawn light grows, I can see her a bit. She's strange, but beautiful.

For no reason, I think "Oh, she's my next girlfriend!"

And wake.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Miriel's fearful = she did seem depressed at Christmas, and I think she still is. I've felt withdrawn too. But in the dream I don't give in--I TEST my fears!
• Lock doors, check house = I may still act codependent but I DO have defenses now!
• Miriel's blind to the dawn = my long night is ending, but the depressed part of me can't see it yet.
• Keeping lights on = I stayed up cartooning when I was too tired to work well.
• Blind because my eyes are closed = living blindly. My family's trained habits? Or from sheer fatigue?
• Blind in the house, but can see dimly outside = working to improve myself alone no longer helps! Been there, done that. Now, to progress, I need to get out of my room and find a lover I can see eye to eye with!
• Centaur = I sketched some centauroid people today, but I think it's a pun too. Someone 'centaured' in her body, lacking my fears and guilts about sex, touch, food etc. The dream hints that she'll have fears around other issues--housing, money, persecution? (This turned out to be predictive on a dream-level, at least. This centaur-girl reappeared in the dream PERISSA'S RESERVED SEAT, and she was no simple Jungian anima, but a character with issues of her own.)

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