The Pool

Type: hypnagogic state imagery
I am passed up on the same road as in yesterday's dream by a strange, elfin creature. Red hair again. Walks straight past me, is wearing a strange costume. I don't remember if we talked or not. Standard watch reality check: hands are spinning wildly from the get-go. I don't bother to look away and look back. I fall asleep quickly.

Type: dream imagery (non-lucid)
It is hard to put these images into their proper order, but I will attempt to organize them in a way that might make sense; so long as everything that I remember is included, I don't think it much matters.

The most prominent aspect of this dream is "the pool." A former roommate (Henry) and I are recreating a myth, a story, or an experiment -- perhaps it is a ritual of some sort. This recreation involves my laying under the water of a shallow fountain deep in the woods, naked and surrounded by flower petals, for exactly a week. I am not sure why it is that I am doing this, but I believe we aim to invoke some female entity (goddess, heroine, something else?) by my imitating this act, for which she was perhaps known or maybe did during her lifetime.

Underwater for a week? Yes, bizarre, but in my dream it doesn't freak me out so much.

I spend an hour in the pool -- I attempt, at first, to stay underwater and breathe through an air pocket in a heavy cloth, but the cloth is wet and the water is dirty, and upon breathing it I am frustrated and do away with the cloth and the idea of staying underwater at all during this experiment. Apparently the rules aren't so strict. So long as I stay in the pool naked and do not leave, I am technically still a part of this recreation. I now have a music player with earphones, supposedly from a bag I brought. So I am sitting in this ruin of a fountain, stark naked, legs crossed, arms draped on its stone wall, listening to an iPod in the middle of the forest. I hear a sound from the trees -- a cluster of men (and perhaps one woman) in medieval clothing (I think?) are approaching and making a ruckus. They immediately begin to hassle me. I am aware of my nakedness and angry that these pigs won't go away. From beneath the water I pull a shortsword. It is heavy. The men continue to laugh and heckle me. For some reason I am aware of the coldness of the air now. The men leave and I quickly leap out of the pool, pull on my clothes without drying off (which makes my clothes irritatingly damp), and head toward the school.

I am late to class. I arrive, I take my seat. The experiment must have been understood to all, because at times I am still naked and no one (including me) seems to care or be shocked. My class is composed of people of all ages, and I know that there are twenty five people. There is a guy that I apparently am attracted to. Something in me is asking, "Why?" because he doesn't seem attractive at all. And now I realize that this guy was the most popular kid in our elementary school, Matthew Fuzzell. I used to have a gigantic crush on him, all the girls did.

Paris Hilton is sitting to my left. The three of us are just the best of friends, now.

So I tell him, suddenly, because he obviously does not recognize me. "Lone Oak Elementary School." He is talking over me, so I blush, wait for him to finish, and I say it again. "Matthew. Lone Oak Elementary School, right?" At first he doesn't acknowledge me, but once he does I realize I'm right.

He's gotten fat.

But he finally recognizes me. He tells a joke. I laugh, oh ho ho ho, you're so funny, Matthew. My chair leans back when I laugh, until it almost touches the floor. My naked form stretches out, catlike, as I laugh. It's such a fake laugh -- Paris laughs, too. I guess there isn't much class to have in this classroom.

For some reason it's understood that we are to pair up with another student, and I am aware that I am paired up with Matthew -- but suddenly our class photograph on the wall has gained an additional fifteen people, and this has somehow separated us, and I throw a hissy fit to the teacher about our being separated like that. There's nothing he can do.

And now we are within a television show, or else Matthew's life drama is so like one that I can scarecely assume it is anything else. His father, who reminds me a bit of Hugh Heffner, tells him at the front door of his dorm room that he must succeed. Matthew tells his father that he is getting married (to Paris, who I am guessing in my dream is only playing the role of some random chick). The father worries that they will end up getting pregnant at this rate -- Paris, looking only as serious as she can manage, knuckles pressed to her lips, mutters in deep thought that she already is. Matthew and Paris embrace one another, his father looks distraught -- knowing there is nothing he can do about it now. Kids will be kids. I feel as if I am looking on this scene from eye-level, but invisibly. It's worth mentioning I'm not really interested in what's going on, but I have no choice but to observe until I am whisked elsewhere.

I rermember why I left the pool in the first place -- there's a problem! I go to see my mentor. I have become dressed by this point.

...by the way, my mentor in this dream turned out to be David Bowie.

On my way to find him, I happen across the doors to the movie theatre which is a part of our school in this dream. Ordinarily it shows documentaries and school-related things, but I believe it is currently showing a B-horror movie of some sort. However, every time I peer in to see what is showing, I discover they are between films. The theatre is usually populated with very pretty, airheaded teenage girls. No time for the movie theatre. Must find my mentor.

So I end up on a house's front porch in what looks like a California desert. Construction work is going on before us. Bowie is lounging on the bannister post. He recognizes me, welcomes me. I approach and begin pouting and complaining immediately. He beckons me for a hug, puts his hand on my knee. Gives me a pep talk. I explain what is troubling me:

I was excited to play the part of this woman in the pool at first, but I forgot how cold it would be getting at night -- in that water, naked, I will be miserable. I also realized how bored I will be. I can't find the charger for my cell-phone (which is a combination cell-phone and Gameboy Advance) and I am now determined to find someone with a copy of a GBA game OTHER than bloody Pokémon (which is all that mine seems to have). Someone I know -- Xero Reynolds, maybe? has a different game in his GBA, but he is nowhere to be found and I have to get back to the pool as soon as possible before Henry knows that I've abandoned it.

And now Bowie has gone, and I crouch down on the porch with a pair of lively puppies that I know to belong to my father's best friend. He approaches -- he looks nothing like my father's best friend but I accept this man as being him.

These puppies, only a few months old at best, are perfectly normal but for that on one side of each of their bodies, rather than fur, is multicolored gravel and cement. I have mistaken these lively puppies for his old dogs, who have been dead and gone for years. When asked about the gravel in their sides, he explains that the puppies were in his apartment after it was built and that the crew who built it hooked the entire apartment up to a crane -- and slid the room around, not knowing the puppies were still inside. The damage was repaired by patching their sides with this gravel.

Wait for it... "And then I woke up." I have no idea about any of this symbolism, though I will say that Matthew showing up in my dream was not strange to me. I often dream about people I never knew that well and haven't seen in many, many years. I'm rarely surprised.

Foxinabox appeared at SOME point in my dream, I recalled later, though I'm not sure where anymore. Jiro and Raman seemed to be prominent characters, I just can't remember how or why.

-M.