A warm night, moonless and dark. I'm on a tiny raft, maybe just an air mattress, crossing a muddy lake, blind. I'm not alone. Huddled next to me is a girl I know. Blonde, nervous, angry, intelligent, she gives up her rights and space and time, practically invites abuse... and she knows it. We were involved long ago. Now we are again. I'm trying to help heal her--show her we CAN cross the lake blind, that she CAN trust me, trust another's touch won't always be abusive.

We reach the far shore, and we lie in the cool mud for hours, experimenting with touch and safety. Don't go as far as sex, since we have no contraception and we're covered in muck.

But her (and my) armor dissolves; our bodies say yes, this is my lover, I feel safe with you.

At last we get up and walk across a field, holding hands.

I see motion behind us, at the edge of a wood. I don't turn my head, pretend I'm oblivious, watch from corner of my eye as a couple enters the starlit field: a tall man, much bigger than his girlfriend beside him, who's slight as a whip. As soon as they spot us, they pull out knives. She leads the attack. Her blade gleams two feet long in starlight.

She slinks up behind us and raises the blade. I don't know what to do.

I wake in panic rather than fight. The panic persists even as I write the dream down--keep startling at every night-sound, sure it's burglars, killers...

DREAM NOTES

• Muddy pond = the dino swamps in Jurassic Park: the Lost World, which I just saw.
• Night = I biked home from that scary movie in the dark. Kept expecting dinos to come round the corner and eat me! All hail the power of film...
• Ex-girlfriend = not my real ex, Kay, who was pretty abusive; more likely the girl I'm trying to heal is my own broken trust.
• Tall man = T. Rex? (In Lost World, Rexes are angry parents defending their baby). Or he could be the kids who bullied me--older, bigger. I'm being stalked by the view of life I learned from them--see threats everywhere and want to get even with imaginary bullies.
• Big knife = my ex-girlfriend Kay used to threaten me with knives...
• Small, deadly woman = in Lost World, a pack of velociraptors gleefully stalk and kill humans in a tall-grass field. I flashed back to the gangs of thugs who chased me at school. While cooking today, I kept picturing velociraptors stalking me through my house; could I defend myself with a kitchen cleaver? So I think the dream attacker is the PLEASURE of venting anger. I've pretty much healed the trust issues, but I still have stabs of anger. And to justify anger, I have to feel under attack.
• WARNING: Anger alone can sabotage love, even if not provoked by my current lover, or even directed at her.

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