Dream Interpretation 27

DREAM 27

21 January 2012

This is a really strange sequence of dream scenes. As you will see below for the attached dream report, the first ‘scenes’ occurred while I was still conscious – therefore were more like visualisations. I was meditating using binaural beats and the ‘visualisations’ occurred during the theta/gamma beats – following a period of 20 minutes of alpha beats. I was concentrating on the beats and mentally preparing for experiencing a dream state (using MILD technique – see below). Soon after the alpha beats switched to the theta/gamma playlist (approx. 10 minutes into the theta/gamma mp3s), the visualisations started and seemed linked to my synesthesia, as I ‘felt’ what I heard and saw and experienced the sensation of biting/tasting the visual noises (I haven’t explained this well – those who understand synesthesia will know the ‘unity of senses’ I’m referring to). In simple terms, I could see, taste and feel the sounds I was listening to. I usually experience synesthesic responses to words, numbers or memories and then, typically the linking of a visual image or word to an unrelated word; or a colour to a number or day/month. The example which most amuses my friends is those words I associate with left and right directions, or more specifically words and themes associated with the colours I have randomly attributed to them. I have set them out below:

Left: 

1. Lemons 
2. Yellow 
3. The nursery rhyme “Oranges and lemons sang the bells of St Clements”  
4. Walking down an avenue with sycamore trees  
5. An old man in tweeds, walking down said avenue 

Right:

1. Baked beans  
2. Orange  
3. A memory of myself as a young child, in my grandmother’s home in Sheringham, swinging myself in the gap between the dining table and the back of the sofa  
4. Carving words in the dining table with a pen tip  
5. Round dullness

Furthermore, only when I’m passenger in a car on a motorway (i.e. I assume this is because there is little opportunity to stop to buy refreshments), I feel an intense thirst if I see lorries with orange or yellow colours on them – I think it’s because I associate them with citrus ice lollies (a semantic link, perhaps?) Another one which always raises a laugh is the associate of my own nipples with instant thirst – if someone touches my bare nipples, I instantly get a craving for water – despite the fact that I otherwise hate drinking water and find that only carbonated water or acidic juices quench my thirst. I cannot explain why this happens, but it has been my experience since first becoming sexually active, and the sensation of intense, immediate thirst never occurs when I touch my nipples myself!!! I’m not sure how relevant it is, but for the record, I was never breastfed and have never drank milk willingly – even as a newborn baby. For more information on this topic, please see my earlier post.

After the visualisations I experienced whilst listening to the binaural beats, I fell asleep for about two hours, during which time I had one very short dream scene.

Lucid dreaming experiments/techniques

• Mental/training – MILD technique (no binaural beats before sleep); WBTB (Wake-Back-to-Bed) technique (woke after 6 hours of delta sleep; remained awake for 1 hour, then returned to MILD technique/sleep)
• Binaural beats through headphones following WBTB technique – 10 minutes of alpha and 1 hour of theta/gamma mix – specifically a looped track I prepared, using binaural beats music downloaded from Youtube. The track I used is called Conscious Release - Solfeggio & binaural beats (theta & gamma), performed by Jandy Rainbow aka Jezebel Decibel. The description of the track states that it a ‘Silk Road-inspired meditation’, incorporating 10 ‘solfeggio’ frequencies with a delicate background soundscape of Oriental Koto music; Punjabi ‘drones’ and Tibetan bowl samples, giving it an ancient feel
• LDS –high strength cod liver oil enriched with omega 3, 6 & 9 (3,600 mg); multivitamins A – Z with evening meal; sea kelp (90 mg); CoEnzyme Q-10 (150 mg); Gingko Biloba (120 mg); and Vitamin B Complex. No 5-HTP (experimenting without to test improvement in dream recall) 

Potential triggers/’day residue’ 

• The evening before this dream I had a debate with a male friend following about black people lightening their skin. We were discussing the theories behind Michael Jackson’s whitened skin (i.e. vitiligo or cosmetic bleaching). I then mentioned the recent ‘race row’ surrounding images of Beyonce with much-lightened skin – not only in the controversial white-washed L’oreal advertisements, but also on her own album cover – and seemingly when photographed without any post-production ‘touch-ups’ (I have presented the relevant images below, as they were intrinsic to my dream). He disagreed that she would have lightened her skin, but I showed him the images on Google. His opinion was that it was fine for her to lighten her skin. I thought this was controversial in light of the previous comments about Michael Jackson, especially given my personal opinion that Beyonce is at liberty to change her skin colour, but it should be recognised that the beauty industry, in lightening skin colour, is reinforcing a discriminatory and artificial aesthetic which contributes to an implicit, if unexpressed, racist attitude to what constitutes ‘beauty’. As I see BeyonceL’Oreal advertisement or the image used on the front of her latest album). In the end my friend and I agreed to disagree
• I was reading articles online about the female aesthetic in hip hop and urban culture. This interest stemmed from a chapter in a book I once read online (I cannot recall the title, I was randomly searching for material about Jennifer Lopez when I stumbled across it) which stated that the aesthetic for an overly large butt stems from black and Latin cultures and entered into the hip hop aesthetic due to the particular social demographic and socio-economic environment of the ‘ghettos’ where hip hop was established – leading to the continued objectification and misogynistic attitudes towards women. According to one anthropological and sociological text, the buttocks have been viewed as a marker of racial difference ever since the  days of slavery, when white people first encountered other racial groups (see the terribly sad story of Sarah "Saartjie" Baartman (1790 – 1815), known as the ‘Hottentot Venus’ (an offensive term for the Khoi people of South Africa) who was paraded around Britain as a freak show on account of her enlarged buttocks and elongated labia). The JLo article insinuated that when she was merely a ‘Latina’ starlet, Jennifer was praised for her large butt, largely because it was part of her culture’s aesthetic and an emphasis on the buttocks was the dominant form of sexual expression. When she entered Hollywood – and mainstream culture – which cherishes a very different aesthetic ideal – she was pressurised (her own account) to lose weight and straighten/lighten her dark, wavy hair – and her butt became objectified as the ‘marker of racial difference’. In some images of Jennifer (post-weight loss) you see a very North Americanised ideal – slender frame with smaller butt; lighter skin/hair; emphasis on the breasts and frontal shots - yet in images promoting Jennifer as either a Latina – or more interesting, hip hop diva, the focus is entirely on her rear – a phallic marker of raw sexual availability. I some cases, it had been grossly over-inflated by the airbrush in post-production. What was interesting was Jennifer’s quote that, during her rise to fame, she was entirely unaware of the attention focused on her butt and knew nothing of the cultural response to her body. I believe that not only was Jennifer very aware of her objectification, but she actively played into it in the promotion of her brand. I am not criticising her for that choice, but it seems ludicrous for her to suggest otherwise. The further articles I read on this topic suggested that in promoting the ‘big butt’ aesthetic, hip hop culture has encouraged a cultural regression – ‘booty shaking’ – often accompanied by lyrical references to women as ‘bitches’ is nothing more than women allowing themselves to ‘wagging their butts like bitches in heat’ as a sign of their sexual availability to the men who they are offering themselves up to – i.e. there is nothing ‘independent’ or self-respecting about being ‘bootylious’. Further, the enhancing of the butt – through surgical implants/injections or padded underwear (and, I’m assuming, organic body sculpting) is compared to the mating rituals of female baboons and other primates, who display inflated buttocks to the male as a signal of fecundity and sexual availability. The articles were all really interesting – particularly given the cultural trend for butt-enlargement/enhancement (and continued reference to celebrities such as JLo, Kim Kardashian, Nicki Minaj, Vida Guerra, Nicole ‘Coco’ Austin, Pippa Middleton etc in the popular media, as contemporary body ‘ideals’ for women to aspire to) and the fact that I am currently in the process of weightlifting/sculpting with the hope of creating the perfect ‘Brazilian beach body’ – making the most of my hourglass figure. I decided to see how big I could get my butt muscles to grow (my butt was already fairly large) after one of my friends compared my figure to Kim Kardashian. The articles I read about JLo and women in hip hop culture generally, led me to question the reasons behind my desire to obtain the perfect butt – after all I admire many of the same women who the articles refer to as promoting this particular aesthetic, and am entirely immersed in hip hop culture. PS and I were talking about the female stereotypes within hip hop culture – and in particular, hip hop videos (he makes hip hop videos, but has avoided reverting to misogynistic/homophobic stereotypes within his lyrical or visual content, although the same cannot be said of many of his peers) the day I had this dream and I was telling him all about the articles I had been reading and he agreed that hip hop still encouraged a negative representation of women. Indeed, I was so interested in the subject and my own perceptions as a female who aspires to an aesthetic I consciously realise to be damaging to my own self respect (i.e. I want to be known for my mind, not my enlarged sexual organs), that I am considering writing a thesis on the topic – i.e. hip hop music and feminism/changing female aesthetics
• I had been doing exercise on my glutes (butt muscles) just prior to going to sleep – and the muscles were aching as I fell asleep, undoubtedly drawing my attention to that part of my body
• On the evening before this dream I told my friends that I had once watched a documentary (I remember watching it, I cannot recall what it was called. I thought it was called Faces of Death, but a search revealed that this was a completely different documentary) which showed the facial expressions of a person (filmed from in front) the second a bullet was fired into the back of their brain
• I was reading Facebook status updates on the home page and read that someone on my friends list was studying medicine in Egypt
• PS and I discussed why domesticated dogs (such as ‘N’) ‘smile’ – by showing their teeth and gums. It looks like a snarl, but is definitely a sign of affection or joy – he does it when greeting or playing and we researched it on the internet. One theory is that dogs only smile like that because they have been conditioned by their owners, who encourage them to continue doing it for affection/treats (most likely the case for N, who does it on demand!)
• While writing up this report, I suddenly remembered that the day before this dream, I saw a clip of a past TV programme Young Butcher of the Year featured on Harry Hill’s TV Burp – and one of the segments Harry was poking fun at involved a ‘young butcher’ who prepared a joint of meat to look like a miniature boat with a sale – hence the association of fins/sales with meat...(see below)

Main dream environment(s)

• (Conscious visualisations/pre-dream scenes): A scene of glacial ice and ocean

• (Scene 1): A shop (I think it was a small shop selling electrical items as there were many television screens dotted about the shop floor)

Characters

(Conscious visualisations/pre-dream scenes):

• Several ‘fins’ in the ocean – I’m not sure if they belonged to a particular species of sea creature
• A snarling child – a little girl, dressed in a pinafore with side-parted hair
• The disconnected (decapitated?) head of a man with brown hair and a moustache (unknown to me in real-life)

(Scene 1):

• Myself (I did not see myself, although I saw my own butt and recognised it as my own)
• PS (appearing as he does in real-life)
• Beyonce
• Various other customers using the shop (none known to me in real-life)

Dream narrative

• (Conscious visualisations/pre-dream scenes):

I could see crystal-like glaciers of ice – some sharp spiky icicles (which I ‘saw’ when I heard a particular sound effect on my binaural beats mp3) and flatter expanses of ice. There was ocean, although I did not see it clearly. When the Tibetan bowl sounds were heard, I saw massive ‘fins’ in the ocean – my first thought was ‘whale meat’, but the fins did not belong to whales – in fact I’m not sure if they belonged to any known sea animal, as they were almost like the sales of a ship, yet thicker and greyish-pink, like rare-cooked tuna steak. As the fins/sales floated closer to my eyes (sorry for the poor terminology used – I don’t think we have a proper, comprehensive ‘dream jargon’ just yet!) I thought of the gelatinous, jelly-like texture of eel flesh (I’ve never tasted it) and blancmange. I felt gelatinous meat. As I stated above, the visualisation of the fins/sales and the sensation of gelatinous meat corresponded directly with the sound made by the Tibetan bowls. A little girl flashed before my eyes. She looked old-fashioned – wearing her hair in a deep side-parting and dressed in a pinafore dress. She jumped onto all fours and snarled at me, in a manner associated with a wild animal. I then saw the disconnected head of the male with the brown hair and moustache. This image appeared before me for a matter of seconds, then the male opened his mouth wide and swallowed his own face, leaving a skull, which flashed before my eyes for literally a second, before it reappeared, mummified – the bandages floating around his head, like the character ‘Mumra’ from Thundercats.

• (Scene 1):

No lucidity. PS and I were in an electrical (or similar) shop. There were television sets (all turned on) on shelves and stacked on the floor. The shop was narrow and confined, and fairly dark. There were several other customers in the shop, browsing or looking at the television screens. PS and I were standing by the counter, waiting for service. The shop-keeper did not come. We turned to leave and to the left-hand side of the door, there was a huge TV screen set up. Something caught my attention. At this point, the shop keeper came from the back room and stood at the counter. He tried to call PS and I back over to where he was standing so that he could help us. I said: “I want to watch the Beyonce video”. The music video on the large screen was definitely one of Beyonce’s, yet it was not one that I know actually exists in real-life (I admittedly haven’t watched any of her videos relating to songs I don’t like). I think it was highly likely that my subconscious mind has composed the video from actual images I have seen and some created by my own mind. I could not hear the music. The video was filmed by a camera positioned at the side of a sofa, on the floor – as if the camera-lens was spying on Beyonce. All I could see on the screen were her legs walking from the other side of the sofa, into the camera lens. The camera then zoomed out and showed Beyonce from the front – she was wearing a sparkling gold leotard. She then started to walk away from the camera. I noticed that her butt (which was completely exposed) looked very different from her own in real-life. As I noticed this, the video seemed to go into slow-motion allowing me to get a better view. I realised that although from a full-frontal angle, the person on the screen was definitely Beyonce – appearing as she does in real-life, from the back, only the head to waist belonged to Beyonce and from there downwards, my lower body had been spliced on. The skin was pale – like my own Middle Eastern mix; the hips were wider and thighs thicker (like my own) and the butt had more cellulite than Beyonce (again, like my own). Beyonce was shaking ‘my’ butt provocatively towards the camera. I could almost see ‘my/her’ vaginal lips as she bent over. I actually have ‘Tallulah’ tattooed above my butt crack, but I couldn’t see this, as it was covered by the leotard (which had a thong, if it wasn’t clear exactly how my butt/genital area was so exposed). I wasn’t ashamed by this, but I was annoyed that she was getting sexual attention from my body part, particularly given the fact I could see the imperfections and knew hers to be of a better ‘aesthetic’ than my own – i.e. why would she choose to purposefully show off my cellulite? I said to PS: “Beyonce has my butt” and he agreed. The other customers were gathered around watching the video. I said: “stop watching it, that’s my butt!” I was getting agitated. The people gathered were telling me: “it’s Beyonce’s butt now...” I woke up in a good mood.

Interpretation/analysis  

I think the interpretation for this dream is pretty self-explanatory, given the dream triggers/day residue referred to above. A lot of the other symbolism (including Beyonce!) has been interpreted elsewhere in this Blog, and I do no justice in repeating myself in this particular interpretation.

Buttocks/bottom/ass:

• Ability to make progress, or to get ahead and ‘make strides’ in life
• ‘Sitting it out’ or resting
• A person's foundation, such as their beliefs and values
• Laziness or procrastination
• Negative emotions you may be holding in or repressing (the idea of anal retentiveness?)
• Feelings of guilt; shame; and self-worth
• Instincts/urges
• Feelings of insecurity/personal struggles
• Misshapen butt – underdeveloped/damaged areas of your psyche

I have included some of the relevant imagery below, I hope my readers enjoy :) 

Glacier of ice in the ocean

Whale fin in the ocean

Rare tuna steak - this has the same quality as the huge fins/sales seen I visualised

Gelatinous texture washed up on ocean shore

Beyonce Knowles in a gold leotard exactly like that which appeared in the dream, except the one in the dream had a thong

Picture of me taken to demonstrate my muscle growth from weight-lifting - aspiring to the 'ghetto booty' ideal of hip hop culture

Sarah "Saartjie" Baartman (1790 – 1815), known as the ‘Hottentot Venus’

 Futuristic Reintrepretation of Hottentot Venus by Renee Valerie Cox (1994)

In this futuristic reinterpretation of the Hottentot Venus, Renee Valerie Cox directly inserts her own body into the historical matrix of Western representations that configured black female sexuality.  In the photograph Cox’s body is transformed, recalling the Hottentot Venus, with the addition of protruding metallic breasts and an accompanying metal butt extension.  The white strings that delicately hold these metallic body parts in place with a bow, seem to emphasise the artists’ complex and ambivalent relationships to representations of black female sexuality.  Cox wears the metallic appendages like a costume or disguise, but her own nude body is simultaneously revealed to the viewer.  She stands in profile emphasising her bodily dimensions, hands akimbo, and stares directly at the viewer.

In the following pictures of Jennifer Lopez, please note the differential representation of her butt - from over-inflated to gross proportions in some images, whilst appearing to adhere to steroetypical western ideals (i.e. small and pert) in others. It is of course, not coincidental that the images where the focus is on the overly-large nature of her butt, tend to be for promotional use aimed towards the Latin and 'urban/hip hop' markets, or for a male audience, whilst the more slim, 'Western' aesthetic tends to appear in images aimed at a female audience, and notably, when photographed for glossy high-end fashion magazines, such as Vogue Italia. In all the pictures I found to illustrate the subject I had been reading about (referred to above), the lens of the camera is firmly focused on Jennifer's butt, symbolising that which marks her as a 'different' bodily aesthetic within popular culture, a sign of her raw sexuality. It has been said that JLo did for the butt, what Pamela Anderson did for breasts --- the media is saturated with stories of increasing numbers of young women seeking buttock augmentation, in pursuit of the current Western craze for the 'big booty' ideal, with several cases ending in fatality, due to complications arising from negligent surgery.

Below are some of the pictures available on the internet showing Beyonce Knowles' supposedly lightened skin (both non-manipulated) and allegedly-airbrushed in post-production for her own album cover for her fourth studio album, 4 (2011); and the L'Oreal Feria campaign (Beyonce was featured as a L'Oreal 'Ambassador' in their 2008 & 2011 campaigns for the hair colourant). What do you think?

Dream Interpretation 26

DREAM 26

20 January 2012

I only remember one scene from this dream, but it was extremely vivid and I recalled it in minute detail upon waking.

Lucid dreaming experiments/techniques

• Mental/training – MILD technique (20 minutes during alpha binaural beats); WBTB (Wake-Back-to-Bed) technique (woke after 5 hours of delta sleep; remained awake for 45 minutes, then returned to MILD technique/sleep)
• Binaural beats through headphones – 20 minutes of alpha (for self-suggestion & meditation/MILD technique) and 90 minutes of delta (for deep, restive sleep); following WBTB technique – 10 minutes of alpha and 90 minutes of theta & theta/gamma mix
• LDS –high strength cod liver oil enriched with omega 3, 6 & 9 (3,600 mg); multivitamins A – Z with evening meal; sea kelp (90 mg); CoEnzyme Q-10 (150 mg); Gingko Biloba (120 mg); and Vitamin B Complex. No 5-HTP (experimenting without to test improvement in dream recall) 

Potential triggers/’day residue’ 

• The evening before this dream I was in a recording studio while PS and other rappers/producers recorded some hip hop tracks. Music promotion (PS’s business) was also discussed
• The day before this dream, I was angered by PS agreeing with my perception that another particular female was considered more attractive by a group of male friends
• I saw SP shortly before I went to bed
• While at SP’s house I had a conversation with him and two other males about one-night stands – specifically, how males could actively seek to have sex with someone they found unattractive just because they ‘got the urge’ – and embarrassing situations the morning after. I argued that women who place themselves in those situations have little self-respect and the boys joked that they should not be discussing the secrets of the male with a girl
• I have recently been trying to find a one-off (pilot) episode of a BBC comedy, written and starring Julia Davis (who I love), entitled Lizzie & Sarah (which is about two women treated exceptionally badly by their selfish husbands)
• A couple of days before this dream, PS informed me that an acquaintance (who was a new father) had a baby as a result of a one-night stand. I wondered how many men had fathered children they did not know about because of one-night stands or casual relationships and we talked about the situation of unwanted fatherhood and whether a man who intentionally has unprotected sex with a female stranger, or casual acquaintance, should have any say in whether the woman has an abortion (PS said the man should have a say, but recognised that this could not be legally enforced due to human rights; while my opinion is that the man should have no say whatsoever, but women who choose to become pregnant from a one-night stand or casual relationship are selfish and shouldn’t expect financial or emotional/parenting support from someone they barely knew when creating a life together). This conversation led me to think of a girl I knew, who became pregnant at the age of 13, but concealed the fact from everyone, including her boyfriend - who didn’t discover he was a father until several days after the birth of his daughter. The last name of the mother/daughter relates to that of the dream character
• SP has a habit of clicking the cartilage in his ear
• On the night of this dream I was wearing large 'doorknocker' hoop earrings - and was pleased to see that my previously over-stretched earlobes had apparently healed from my abstaining from daily wearing over-heavy earrings

Main dream environment(s)

• (Scene 1):

I am not sure of the timing. It was an interior setting, with an artificial light. The floor was white and the only furniture in the room was a brown two-seater sofa

Brown two-seater sofa

Characters

• Myself (I did not see myself)
• PS (appearing as he does in real-life)
• SP (as above)
• A female musician named ‘Sarah Coulson’ - referred to only/voice heard on telephone (unknown to me in real-life – I Google-d the name, but found no-one familiar or linked to myself or any party in this dream)

Dream narrative

• (Scene 1):

No lucidity. PS and SP were sitting beside one another on the sofa. If I was standing before them, PS would be on the left and SP on the right. I was sitting on the floor in front of them, with my back to them. I was organising papers. PS’s mobile phone rang and he had a conversation with a female. They were organising for him to meet with her to promote her music. I tried to interrupt the telephone conversation, by shaking his leg. I was trying to ask him why he was meeting this girl when he never usually met with the male artists (usually business is conducted online, as is the nature of the company). He carried on speaking with her. When he finished the conversation, I stood up, agitated. SP starting whispering in PS’s ear and I lip-read, seeing that he was saying I was a typically jealous woman and PS should not listen to what I was saying. My anger increased and I stood up. PS took out a black leather-bound diary/organiser and looked at any entry. I grabbed it from him. The pages were white with blue lining. On the dated page the diary was open on, was an entry. It was in blue biro

Black leather-bound filofax

Human ear

Interpretation/analysis  

I think this dream is clearly about sexism and sexual jealousy – from my position on the floor, beneath the males and therefore, in my perception, lower in status; to the whispered conversations and apparent secrecy between the males (regarding another female), from which I was excluded. The removal of the ear is (I think) symbolic of the removal of the phallus (i.e. castration) – the emasculation of the male.

Dream Interpretation 25

DREAM 25

18 January 2012

This dream was really frustrating. During the dream, I was presented with a great ‘lucid dream trigger’ – I realised the one of my dream characters, introduced as a person known to me in real-life had a completely different appearance. I questioned this while in the dream, but didn’t adequately perform a ‘reality check’ or exercise any methods of dream control which would have potentially triggered lucidity.

Lucid dreaming experiments/techniques

• Mental/training – MILD technique (20 minutes during alpha binaural beats); WBTB (Wake-Back-to-Bed) technique (woke after 5 hours of delta sleep; remained awake for 30 minutes, then returned to MILD technique/sleep)
• Binaural beats through headphones – 20 minutes of alpha (for self-suggestion & meditation/MILD technique) and 90 minutes of delta (for deep, restive sleep); following WBTB technique – 20 minutes of alpha and 90 minutes of theta & theta/gamma mix
• LDS –high strength cod liver oil enriched with omega 3, 6 & 9 (3,600 mg); multivitamins A – Z with evening meal; sea kelp (90 mg); CoEnzyme Q-10 (150 mg); and Gingko Biloba (120 mg). No 5-HTP (experimenting without to test improvement in dream recall) 

Potential triggers/’day residue’ 

• Shortly before bed, I was reading case law for my legal research – hence the themes of crime; sentencing and prison terms; and notably, defendant & complainant/victim anonymity in sexual crimes
• I had a discussion a couple of days prior to this dream with some male friends, who asked me to explain the concept of 'drunken consent is still consent' (a relatively recent change in UK law which took place as a result of landmark House of Lords judgments in cases where female rape complainant, apparently consenting to intercourse with the respective defendants at the relevant time, later claimed they had been unable to give fully informed consent due to intoxication). The conversation then moved on to false rape complaints and the law of consent in sexual cases, which provoked some hostile reactions from some of the boys, who felt there was an inequality in the law
• I had discussed the concept of voluntary suicide with a friend the day before this dream
• I had been feeling particularly stressed following an argument with my mum two days prior to this dream, which had  not yet been resolved
• I watched a pornographic scene on TV just prior to falling asleep, whilst I was laying in bed – shortly after this scene, a character in the programme said “get him out of here” (see Scene 3 – below)
• Just prior to bed, I read a Facebook post from a close relative stating that she had been sexually assaulted earlier that day. I felt sorry for her and intended to get in contact to ask what happened, but it was the early hours of the morning - this may have been on my mind

Main dream environment(s)

• (Scene 1)  Unknown time of day, but I think it was the evening – an interior (seemed to be a lounge) which appeared to be a mix of my former childhood home in Pine Grove, Sheringham and my current home in London. There were two armchairs positioned to face a long sofa which was in front of the window
• (Scene 2) A short period after Scene 1 – the same house, in a bedroom which appeared again to be a mix of my Pine Grove bedroom (in particular the area of the room opposite the door, where there are two built-in wardrobes either side of a vanity unit) and my current London bedroom (double-bed, positioned adjacent to the window to the right-side of the door)
• (Scene 3) ‘Real-time’ passage of time from Scene 2 – the bedroom again
• (Scene 4) Timing unclear – the downstairs lounge interior once again – this time standing at a white marble island counter, separating the lounge from the kitchen – which is present in neither the real-life Sheringham or London properties of which this dream ‘home’ appeared to be a composite

Characters

(Present in all scenes):

• Myself (first person perspective – I did not see myself

(Scene 1):

• PS (appearing as he does in real-life)
• CJS (PS’ mother – appearing as she does in real-life, except her hair was luminous orange, as opposed to ginger red)
• SS (PS’ father – he was my potential ‘lucid dream trigger’ – instead of appearing as an Indian Sikh with a strong Indian accent, he was a white male with grey hair/beard; pale milky blue eyes – which were cross-eyed; walked with a limp and spoke with an English accent. Although I questioned these facts in the dream, I did  not adequately perform a ‘reality check’ or attempt to exercise dream control methods which may have triggered lucidity)

(Scene 2):

• SS

(Scene 3):

• The presence of other persons (unseen) entering the bedroom
• A white female adult with brown hair, wearing blue and white patterned pyjamas (unknown to me in real-life)
• PS

(Scene 4):

• PS
• PC (my grandmother)
• Various other persons, standing or sitting in the room, who I was too anxious to recognise or acknowledge
• A lawyer over the telephone 

Dream narrative

• (Scene 1):

No lucidity. I was with PS and CJS in the lounge area. I was aware PS’ dad was going to visit shortly (he lived in mainland Europe and makes several yearly visits in real-life). There was some unrecalledCJS sat on the armchair to my right and we were facing PS and SS, who were sat side-by-side on the sofa. PS said to SS “I like you, but I hate all women”. I felt angry. CJS said nothing. I got up and left the room.

• (Scene 2):

No lucidity. I was in the composite bedroom, standing by the right-hand side wardrobe (by the window – a location which featured in an earlier dream). In this composite room, this meant I was at the foot of my bed. SS entered the room and we had a short conversation which I could not recall. I was able to see his face close-up and again, thought he was totally different – it may be my subconscious mind was again, trying to present me with a lucid dream trigger (my MILD technique involved the use of a mnemonic – “next time I am dreaming I will be aware that I am dreaming” – SS was the biggest ‘clue’ that I was dreaming!) SS left the room.

• (Scene 3):

No lucidity. I still felt agitated. I got into the bed and pulled the cover over my head. I felt the presence of people entering and leaving the room. Then I felt someone get into the bed next to me and start touching my body in a sexual way. I felt alarmed, and pulled back the covers. I saw the brunette female wearing the  blue/white pyjamas lying next to me in the bed, pretending to be asleep. PS entered the room. He was standing at the door. I said “get her out of here!”

• (Scene 4):

No lucidity. I was in the lounge/kitchen area, leaning on the island counter. There was a pile of Crown Prosecution Service papers on the counter beside me. I felt anxious. The talk in the room was of my impending imprisonment, but I wasn’t sure what crime I had allegedly committed. PS said to me “you’re going to prison for ages”. I was arguing, saying I wouldn’t surrender to custody, but everyone else seemed to have accepted my fate and seemed unconcerned.  I said: “I’m going to run away”. PS said: “there will be men waiting for you at the borders”. My panic increased. I said: “I’ll just kill myself”, but PC said: “the ambulance will bring you back, they’ll still get you”. I paced around the room, stressed. I said “I’ll go to prison if it’s a male prison or if the sentence is only a week”. I was informed this was not possible, but I felt confident I could manipulate the situation so I’d only stay in prison for a week. I got out a mobile phone and called a lawyer – because I was agitated, my fingers misdialled the numbers several times. When I got through to a person on the other end of the phone, I asked: “in prison, is a week 5 days or 7 days?” The female lawyer said: “7 days”. I was still anxious as the phone call ended. I woke up, but felt content and happy upon waking. I started to recall the dream, which had been very vivid, but fell back asleep before fully consolidating the memories in my mind, or recording them in writing.


Interpretation/analysis  
The references to crime seem pretty self-explanatory – I was immersed in legal papers just prior to sleeping, so this was a likely form of ‘day residue’. Similarly, the inclusion of the female in the bed and the sexual touching may have related to the sexual/pornographic imagery I saw immediately prior to sleep – the dream character of the female may have been clothed in pyjamas due to my subconscious mind ‘censoring’ the experience to make it appear less threatening. After spending more time thinking about the content of this dream, I am convinced that the fact I was reading about defendant and complainant/victim anonymity in rape cases combined with the almost contemporary viewing of pornographic scenes led to the dream symbolism. In particular - PS's statement misogynistic statement that he "hated all women" may be a symbolic representation of my view of men who objectify women (and my own mixed view of pornography - fascination regarding the aesthetic and cultural impact, plus revulsion at the sexual jealousy and inadequacy it provokes). The fact that I was 'sexually assaulted' by a female and thereafter perceived myself as 'guilty' of a crime which I could not comprehend, may point to two intertwined notions - the view that women who dress provocatively or act in a sexually provocative way are 'up for it' and therefore 'guilty' of their own rape/assault if sending 'mixed messages' (i.e. relating to the literature I had been reading which suggested that complainant/victim anonymity enables women to make false rape complaints, whilst the male defendant may have his identity disclosed upon arrest); and that women who participate in the pornographic industry are perpetuating the objectification of women. The concept of 'female blame' - for the partial failure of the feminist movement? was represented in the dream through the brown haired female dream character, who committed the assault on me - a female - who was later to be judged and sentenced for a crime committed upon me as opposed to any active conduct of my own. Furthermore, perhaps the female lawyer on the telephone - my call for help - represented an aspect of myself; the education and career  I have embarked upon to better myself (prior to law school, I used to work in a dance club, therefore actively participating in the objectification of myself and women, generally. I also plan to have some glamour photographs taken when I have finished my gym training) - an 'intellectual' path. Yet, the female lawyer self was pretty unhelpful and simply confirmed my worst suspicions about my fate - i.e. that my prison term would be longer/more onerous than I had hoped it would be.

SS as he appeared in the dream

An approximation of the brown haired female in blue & white patterned pyjamas who sexually assaulted me in the bedroom

The sexual touching within the dream

Pile of legal papers

Legal textbooks & judge's gavel

Prison convict suit