DAY

Wake with a jangling arc in my visual field again--like a migraine precursor but no migraine. The fifth this fall, the sixth this year. Small, vanishes in minutes. But still... nearly as many this year as in all other years combined. I asked my doctor at Kaiser Clinic to refer me to a neurologist.

My doctor emails at last--to say no. "I talked to a neurologist for you, who said BCG would be inappropriate." I feel furious. I wrote my doctor a detailed email and just briefly mentioned BCG as one of many treatments I wanted to explore--with a specialist who knows what the hell my symptoms mean. Rather than letting me speak for myself, my doctor's misrepresenting me to specialists! Neurotypicals do this to us Aspies a LOT, even try to mansplain me to me. And get it wrong.

I start to rough in a ruder, blunter reply listing symptoms and justifying the visit--again. Clearly, getting any care at all will be a long repetitious haul.

DREAM

Look out a window of my narrow dark wood-paneled room and see what seems to be a volcano rising from the sea. Looks like Hawaii--the Big Island. But as I look closer, it looks funny--the peak is snowless, undistinguished, a couple thousand meters high--maybe that older western peak, Hualaalai, or the Kohala Range in the north? Can see its crater, oval, narrow, nearly end-on. Can only see down into it because we're higher still, up on the shoulder of Mauna Kea or Mauna Loa, twice as tall.

Only now, I'm down on the shore! A mishmash of San Francisco Bay and windward Oahu--conical islands, little and big, dot a shallow sound. One just a few yards high and a short swim offshore. Could nude sunbathe here.

Now I'm there, on the beach, sitting on a crude raft--three bound logs. But there's no food or fresh water. I decide I'd better paddle or swim back.

But the water's murky and smells. Junk in it. A dumping ground! Very un-Hawaiian.

Specialty junk. Uniforms with gold braid, and rusty metal shapes, and lumps suspiciously like skulls. Looks to me like a marching band in full regalia trooped into the sea and drowned!

Sharp rusty edges, bacteria... now I'm wary of putting my hands in the water--I need to find a paddle.

Spot a curving dull-gold edge in the water, rising out of murk almost to the air. A rusted half-meter disk. Tug on it. Comes free. Lift it out. A brass cymbal! Could it make a workable paddle?

I try. Slowly work out how to alternate sides. Gotta take it slow, for it has no handles, and if I fumble and drop it, it'll sink like, well, brass, and I'll be stuck again.

But eventually, I get the rhythm of it, and I glide along at a knot or two.

A long grueling paddle across a wide strait. Miles... hours.

At last I land, exhausted, shoulders sore... in an alley in San Francisco! I stagger ashore, fall, crawl out to the street. A girl walking by gasps in shock; I groan but can't get up. I'm in soaked filthy rags, dehydrated, sunburnt, shoulders inflamed...

But it got me home alive, that cymbal--if that's how you want to spell it.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Wreckage of band: our band The Krelkins--I'm sick, and Mike's recovering from surgery. I wonder if we'll ever play live again.
• Stranded/shipwrecked, must save myself: Kaiser, my health plan, has been no help.
• Musical instrument saves me: put time & energy into music. But pace! It's a strain!
• Dreams of endless effort: I get tachycardia; I think my dreams try to explain that pounding heart with scenes of stressful exercise like this.
• Dream cymbal: dream symbol! Dreams have diagnosed me better than doctors. Wait, specialists are often intelligent--when I'm allowed to see them!
• ACTION 1: Play music. It'll get me across an impossible gulf.
• ACTION 2: Keep figuring out dream symbols. Following dream advice saved my life repeatedly.
• ACTION 3: Heal myself. Expect no help from Kaiser--they won't listen to a poor dumb autistic who merely knows his actual symptoms.

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