I'm biking up a steep hill. Gasp and sweat. A car zooms just by me, then swerves onto the shoulder, nosing into the bank, to block my path. I hop the bike up onto the bank and go round--I want to get away, think the driver's not just reckless but actively hostile. Reach a line of concrete bollards blocking cars from the round flat summit, a hectare or so; if he chases me up here, he'll have to go on foot, and I'll have a huge speed-advantage.

On this summit plateau I meet the Ghost Mistress, who manages the large ghost population haunting the hill--she calms, nurtures, and mediates thier disputes. She's a slender, frizzy-haired, translucent spirit in spectral overalls. Kind of cute.

But I face an assault--a wave of local ghosts. Push at my aura, want to take me over, make me their sock puppet. Wait--am I really the target, or am I just in the way, is it really aimed at her?

I weather that attack okay, feel a little triumph, mixed with a little fear--do they have more, in reserve? I'm pretty drained.

I limp over to a row of black iron posts with a chain between, a crude railing like on the Half Dome ascent, likely as old as the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. Beyond, the bluff plunges straight into the sea. I stagger south, hanging on the chain-rail. See homes ahead; nearly back in civilization. And just past the park boundary I see a girl I know and like. But then...

A huge wave, at least 30 meters high, splashes up past the railing, soaks me, swamps the summit. A luminous blue splash. Magic-charged water!

In it, two hostile sea-beings: a little girl, and a winged lioness--a sea-sphinx? Both glow turquoise.

I'm shocked to find that, though they're acting like enemies, I'm powerfully attracted to the sphinx--way beyond the mild interest I've felt for anyone else lately. Maybe in years!

Then I realize this is a dream--an incubated dream! Just before sleep I pondered my recent series of sexy, surreal dreams of blue and the sea--Lamia, Witchmare Seduces Twilight and Statues on Ice. Doing that provoked a more explicit dream in the set. One saying I'm not just shy--my orientation's not human.

"Better practice swimming" I think, and wake.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Hostile driver: the only violent road-rager I've faced was a Trumpie screaming at me over a bumper sticker he didn't like--but here, Trumpism's just the first in an escalating series of three assaults.
• Ghost-mistress in overalls: looked like Cassandra, the prophetic barista in the queer-werewolf-romance comic Moonstruck. She's always an observer, oracle or catalyst... and always single. My own predictive dreams interfere with love, too; sensing things I can't easily talk about keeps me reserved, like her.
• Ghosts attack the oracle! They're not dreams, because I haven't had a flood of nightmares, or guilt-dreams about ESP. Could they be Covid viruses? Are they internet trolls and bots? But why show them as ghosts? Could they be literal spirits hostile to dream-shamans? Predictive dreamers like me are well-attested in many societies and eras, but are never common. Is there an organization of demonic goons (or Gaia's immune system) attacking those who see too much?
• Winged lioness, sea invading: Venice! The winged lion is its symbol; rising seas DO threaten to drown Venice. Global warming, third horse in this dream's apocalypse.
• Lioness because of the Venice mysteries by 'Donna Leon'; her pen name means 'lion-woman'. A recent book savaged factory owners who dump toxic waste into the lagoon where people fish... I can see why sea-creatures would be furious!
• Attracted to the sea-sphinx: I knew of three reasons I'm single: Asperger shyness, early sexual trauma, and ESP. The dream says I overlook a fourth: most humans are bland. Strangeness excites me. Even a hostile sphinx attracts me...
• Errrrrrr... why IS she hostile? Have I been dumping toxins on her, unaware?

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