E.l.e.c.t.r.i.c D.r.e.a.m.s


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E.l.e.c.t.r.i.c D.r.e.a.m.s


Volume #13 Issue #2

February 2006

ISSN# 1089 4284

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http://www.dreamgate.com/electric-dreams

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C O N T E N T S

++ Editor's Notes
Richard Wilkerson

++ Global Dreaming News
Harry Bosma

++ Cover "Dream Essence"
by Laura Atkinson
http://tinyurl.com/7ogg8

++ Column: An Excerpt from the Lucid Dream Exchange
Lucy Gillis - Editor
Dream Characters and Reality Checks Part Four:
Mutual Dreaming - Linda Lane Magallón

++ Dream: "Are You Lonely There Tonight, My Love?"
Stan Kulikowski II

++ Article: The Impossible Dream:
Part 1: Identities in Process and Impossible Objects
Richard Catlett Wilkerson

++ Dream: "Continuance, Make For The Vital Spots"
Stan Kulikowski II

++ DREAM SECTION: Special installment from Computer Dreams by Gem


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D E A D L I N E :
Feb 16th deadline for March 2006
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Post Dreams and Comments on Dreams to:
http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/temple

Send news, events, workshops, conferences& reviews to
Harry Bosma <ed-news@...>

Send Articles, news and other items to:
Richard Wilkerson: <rcwilk@...>


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Editor's Notes

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Welcome to the Feb 2006 issue of Electric Dreams, your portal to dreams and
dreamwork online.

If you are new to dreams and dreamwork, there are a few e-lists where
Electric Dreams people seems to congregate that might interest you. One is
dreamchatters@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe by going here and registering
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dreamchatters/

.. and another is the IASD bulletin board
Please, no dreams interpreted here, just discussion of dreaming and
dreamwork topics.
http://www.asdreams.org/subidxdiscussionsbboard.htm

This month in Electric Dreams:

Thanks to Laura Atkinson for the cover art contribution, you can read more
about that below in Dream Essence.

Lucy Gillis continues to explore the edges of dreaming and finds the most
interesting topics for her Lucid Dream Exchange. Lucy talks about this
months excerpt:
"Back in May of 2005, Linda Lane Magallón tackled the subject of dream
characters in part one of her four part series. Are dream characters real
people? Do they have a will, or a consciousness of their own? Are they all
the same, or could some be lifeless projections? Join Linda as she takes us
on a journey through her own thoughts and intriguing dreams. You may not
look at your dream characters in quite the same way again!" Be sure to read
"Dream Characters and Reality Checks Part Four: Mutual Dreaming."


Stan Kulikowski II has two selections this month, "Are You Lonely There
Tonight, My Love?" and "Continuance, Make For The Vital Spots." If you
have dreams you would like published, please enter them in the form at
http://dreamgate.com/forms/dream_flow.htm

I'm including an exploratory essay of my own, part of the Postmodern
Dreaming series. This one is about using Jacque Lacan's theory of language
and psychoanalysis to explore magnets in dream that pull the narrative from
off-stage. What's pulling you along in your dreams? Read "The Impossible
Dream Part 1: Identities in Process and Impossible Objects."

The Dream Editor is on vacation this month. In place of the Dreams Section,
I'm including part 2 of a collection of computer dreams from "Gem". Gem's
dreams start in about 2000 when she got a job involving computer work. What
is interesting is that prior to this job, she knew little about them.

Janet Garrett archives past issues so you can search out specific articles
and authors in an easy-to-access format. These articles contain a wide range
of information for dreamers and dreamworkers. You can see her work progress
and view hundreds of article on dreams at:
http://www.improverse.com/ed-articles/index.htm

Harry Bosma searches around the world for news on dreams and dreaming, which
you can read about in the Global Dreaming News. If you have any dream news,
conferences, books, workshops, and especially any online meetings or events,
be sure to send that information to Harry by the 15th of each month at
ed-news@...

A couple of items I didn't get into the news but are on the near dream
horizon:
The will be a CNN special on Sleep and Dreams, due to air Sunday, March 12,
2006, which will feature Patricia Garfield, PhD. Also see her comments and
others in the
Reader's Digest, February, 2006, "Making Peace with Grief"
and
Gayle Delaney, PhD will be doing two segments on Dreams on the
TODAY SHOW on March 1.

Be sure to read all of these dreams and more.
If you want to send in dreams, please enter them at
http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/temple
or join the dream flow at dreamflow@yahoogroups.com
(dreamflow-subscribe@yahoogroups.com)

Cover by Laura Atkinson
http://tinyurl.com/7ogg8

--------------------

For those of you who are new to dreamwork,
be sure to stop by one of the many resources:

http://dreamgate.com/electric-dreams
http://dreamgate.com/dream/library
http://dreamunit.net/news-en/
http://www.dreamtree.com

Electric Dreams in PDF: (thanks to Nick Cumbo)
http://electric.dreamofpeace.net/

--------------------

From the Dream Dimension,

-Richard Wilkerson


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G L O B A L D R E A M I N G N E W S

February 2006

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Got news? Email Harry Bosma at his special ed-news@... address.


Online:
- Adventures in Consciousness
- The Dream Catcher
- Famous dream discoveries
- Beta testing the Dream Registry
- Gayle Delaney Free Dream Courses

Physical world:
- Hawaii: Stephen LaBerge and Alan Wallace
- Berkeley: the Dream Institute
- Copenhagen: Nordic Dream Conference
- Dreaming in Bridgewater / Art prizes

Books, movies, research:
- Robert Gongloff: Dream Exploration - A New Approach
- Bitsy Broughton: Dream survey

Recurring events:
- San Francisco: The Practice of Active Dreaming
- Ritual DaFuMu for Peace


* * * ONLINE * * *

---
- Adventures in Consciousness
---

The Adventures in Consciousness forum is a new NewWorldView forum moderated
by Sean Foreman:

http://tinyurl.com/dg5be

Sean is a long time Seth reader who is working his way through the Seth
material book by book with an emphasis on the material on dreams, lucid
dreaming, and projections of consciousness. He began with Book 1 of The
Early Sessions and is creating a self-guided course of study that anyone can
follow.

How far you go is entirely up to you, but Sean will be sharing various
tools, practices, and tips to assist in your own exploration of what Seth
calls the "unknown" reality.

Read Sean's Welcome & Overview:
http://tinyurl.com/8f6vv


---
- The Dream Catcher
---

The Dream Catcher is a forum to discuss and interpret dreams. It will also
be a place for advice, discussing lucid dreams and other psychic or
spiritual phenomena.

This group is intended for two types of people. Those who are talented at
interpreting dreams and those who are looking for answers to their dreams.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/The_Dream_Catcher

Thanks very much!
Sarita


---
- Famous dream discoveries
---

Brilliant Dreams highlights twelve famous discoveries and creativity
attributed to dreams. From Paul McCartney's "Yesterday" to Mary Shelley's
"Frankenstein", dreams have played a major role in human creativity,
discovery and invention.

www.brilliantdreams.com/product/famous-dreams.htm

Brilliant Dreams produces and markets dream enhancement and sleep beneficial
products.


---
- Beta testing the Dream Registry
---

Dear dreamers!

You're invited to test the Dream Registry:

http://dreamunit.net/registry/

All comments on any aspect of the website will be seriously considered.

I think that the Dream Registry will eventually accept all kinds of dreams,
but I have to start somewhere, so psi dreams and especially precognitive
dreams is what I'd like to focus on first.

Early March I want to invite dreamers to join a few adventures in
precognitive dreaming.

Best wishes,

Harry

---
- Gayle Delaney Free Dream Courses- Gayle Delaney Free Dream Courses
---


Title: All About Your Dreams
Course Type: Online Instructor-led Course Estimated Completion Time: 24
hour(s) Session Length: 4 week(s)
Take this course for FREE
Upcoming Sessions
February 6, 2006 - OPEN
The site is barnesandnobleuniversity.com and one then goes to Life
Improvement Courses.

Click on course title: All About Your Dreams The course is free and gives
people a chance to meet other students of the dream in a lively atmosphere.

Prerequisites
A wild curiosity about dreams
A sense of humor about the difficulties of being human The desire to tap the
Sherlock Holmes within

Description
Every night you have several dreams; unlocking their secrets can help you to
better understand your motivations, your potential, and the obstacles you
place in your own way. Understanding your dreams can also help you make
better decisions, form better relationships, and deal with childhood,
sexual, career, and self-esteem issues.

All About Your Dreams will help you learn to be a Dream Interviewer--someone
who knows how to ask the right questions rather than relying on the standard
"one-size-fits-all" dream dictionary. You will liberate yourself from
psychological dogmas, and learn to look before you leap to an
interpretation. When you know how to look and listen carefully, your dreams
will become clear statements of your deepest insights. You will see how
Dream Incubation can help you target and solve particular problems in your
life. By using the steps and questions provided in the textbook and the
course exercises, you will learn to take advantage of the highly personal
meanings of common dream images as well as those of recurring dreams and
nightmares. You can practice Dream Interviewing and Dream Incubation by
yourself or you can form "dream partnerships" with other classmates. What a
great opportunity to meet others who are just as fascinated by dreaming as
you are!

This course is taught by Gayle Delaney, Ph.D., a pioneer in the field of
modern dream interpretation and author of seven books on the subject.

Audience: This course is for anyone who is curious about dreams. The lessons
and exercises are appropriate for both novice dream interpreters and those
with more experience.

This course is great for artists, writers, lawyers, and scientists who would
like to tap into their dream-generated inspiration to problem solve more
efficiently. Therapists and dream group leaders and members who want to hone
their interpretive skills are also welcome.


Objectives
Use dreams to make more informed decisions that affect your daily life
Recall your dreams more vividly and more often Recall a dream that deals
with an issue of concern to you Interview yourself about your dream
Interview other dreamers and help them to understand their dreams Understand
at least some of your recurring dreams Celebrate your liberation from
hopelessly general dream interpretations Find the specific meanings of a
good number of your dream images

Course Materials
All About Dreams
In Your Dreams

Course Creator(s)
Dr. Gayle Delaney
Gayle Delaney, Ph.D., is a pioneer in modern dream work. She is the
best-known author in the field of dream interpretation and incubation.
Co-Founding president of the Association for the Study of Dreams, and
co-director (with Loma K. Flowers, M.D.) of the Delaney & Flowers Dream
Center in San Francisco, she is the author of many books and is a popular
guest on such shows as Oprah, NBC Nightly News, Today Show, and Good Morning
America. Visit Gayle's web site at http://www.gdelaney.com.

* * * PHYSICAL WORLD * * *

---
- Hawaii: Stephen LaBerge and Alan Wallace
---

DREAMING and AWAKENING
with STEPHEN LaBERGE and Alan Wallace
Wednesday May 10 - Friday, May 19, 2006
Kalani Oceanside Retreat, Hawaii

Using the most effective techniques and technology, derived from Western
science and Tibetan Dream Yoga, Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D. and Alan Wallace,
Ph.D. will co-present instructions on methods of developing the mental
skills that foster lucidity and on directing consciousness within both
dreaming and waking states towards fulfillment of personal goals.

Participants in our past retreats have had great success with achieving
lucidity, with most having had one or more lucid dreams during the program.

Details and online registration are available at:
http://lucidity.com/hawaii

If you have any questions about this program, please don't hesitate to
contact keelin@...

Sweet tropical dreams to all!
Stephen, Alan, Dominick, & Keelin


---
- Berkeley: the Dream Institute
---

The Dream Institute of Northern California
1672 University Ave
Berkeley, CA 94703
1-510-845-1767

The Dream Institute offers the following during February 2006.

- From the Dream Outward

Saturday, February 11, 2006, 2-4 PM
$30 & $20 Students
Vijali Hamilton, MA combines education, art and ritual to focus attention on
resolving social and environmental problems and to activate our awareness of
the interconnectedness of all life.

- Indigenous Dreaming

Friday, February 24, 2006, 1-6PM
Barbara & Dennis Tedlock, PhDs, talk about their lifetime of dreams and
anthropology
$100 & $50 Students

- Art: From the Inside Out

Sunday, February 12, 2006, 1-4 PM
Vijali Hamilton, MA will lead a journey that addresses one's deepest
inquires through the process of art-making.
$34 & $25 Students

- Culture Dreaming - Window to the World

First Saturdays
Feb 4, Mar 4,
3-5 PM Social Hour Follows
$20 & $15 Students
With Richard Russo, MA and Meredith Sabini, PhD.

Culture Dreaming is an experimental ritual that gives a living sense of
interconnection. First, dreams are told in Quaker fashion, with no comment.
Then we explore together the composite dream just co-created. Dreams become
a camera obscura or hologram showing surprising relevance to both individual
and larger social concerns. Observers welcome. Come once, occasionally, or
regularly.


---
- Copenhagen: Nordic Dream Conference
---

Dreams and creativity
24-26 March, 2006

A spectacular program with among other Pia Skogeman, jungian analyst and
writer (Denmark); Montague Ullman, MD and world reknown dream researcher
(USA, via web-transmission); BrittMari Felke, teacher (Sweden); Eero-Tapio
Vuori, artist, theatre director (Finland); Antti Revonsuo ph.d./Katja Valli
(Finland); Michael Schredl, Ph.d. dream researcher (Germany) and many more.
The program includes panels, workshops, presentations, performance and
networking.

The conference is organised as a regional conference of the International
Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) by the Danish Association for the
Study of Dreams (FFSD) in cooperation with the Swedish and Finnish Dream
Forum. The conference will mainly take place in English language.

The fee of the conference is extra-ordinary low, so we hope this will make
it possible for more people to attend. The fee is 750 Danish Kroner
(approximately 100 EURO). Members of IASD receives a special discounted fee
at 500 Danish Kroner (approximately 70 EURO).

For more information, please see:
www.ffsd.dk/ndk_2006.php


---
- Dreaming in Bridgewater / Art prizes
---

23rd Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of
Dreams

June 20 - 24th, 2006
Bridgewater State College,
Bridgewater Massachusetts

Join dreamers, clinicians, researchers, educators and artists from all over
the world for four days of workshops, lectures, exhibits, and events
examining dreaming and dreamwork as presented through traditional and
innovative theories and therapies, personal study, scientific research,
cultural tradition and the arts. Over 100 workshops and events on all
aspects of dreaming are planned, with topics and events of interest to the
general public as well as professionals. Special events include an Opening
Reception, a Dream Arts Exhibition and reception, a solstice visit to a
Native American archaeoastronomical site, a Dream Telepathy Contest, various
other social events and the ever popular closing costume "Dream Ball".

Special note for artists: TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS in prizes will be awarded by
an anonymous donor for the best Dream Art in June, '06. 1st prize: $l000,
two 2nd prizes of $500 each. Any medium is acceptable including photography,
videos or DVDs, computer art, book art, installation or any combination of
the above. The dream or the significant part of the dream must be included.
The criteria for selection will be originality, integrity, universality, and
relevance to building bridges. The awards will be presented during the Art
Reception in June, '06.

More information at the website of the IASD:
http://asdreams.org



* * * BOOKS, MOVIES, RESEARCH * * *

---
- Robert Gongloff: Dream Exploration - A New Approach
---

Dreams speak to us in a symbolic language. From night to night, those
symbols and images can appear wildly different. But in truth, they are
likely replaying an important theme in your life, a vital message from your
dream world to your conscious mind.

While most dream books focus on symbolism, Dream Exploration helps readers
go deeper by exploring the themes presented in dream life and their
relationship to waking life. Written as a how-to guide, this
first-of-its-kind book includes a twelve-step process that helps you
identify core themes in your life and how best to grow with them. Also
included is a theme matrix that offers practical actions readers can take to
move beyond their dreams.

More information: www.heartofthedream.com

For press kit or to arrange an interview, please contact Brian Farrey at
Llewellyn Publicity, email: brianf@...


---
- Bitsy Broughton: Dream survey
---

Bitsy Broughton invites you to fill out the dream survey on her website.

"The answers you provide will broaden our understanding of the dialogue
between dreamer and dream, and how that information may reflect or influence
our walking lives. I would be happy to email you a summary of my current
research using this questionnaire, and if you like I can offer comments on
the dreams you describe below."

www.graygoosedreams.com/survey.htm



* * * RECURRING EVENTS * * *

---
- San Francisco: The Practice of Active Dreaming
---

Based on Robert Moss' pioneer synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism.

Elizabeth Lombardo
email: elizabeth_lombardo@...
phone: 415-447-8552


---
- Ritual DaFuMu for Peace
---

The World Dreams Peace Bridge, on the 15th of each month, is holding a
monthly DaFuMu - a collective dream of good fortune - to support peace.

In joining a DaFuMu each month we will be seeking the mandala of peace
within the universal mind: learning what it is to be peaceful at a personal
level, how to act in a peaceful manner within the world, and accessing and
supporting the general mandala of peace available to all people. So, please
join in on the 15th of each month. Before sleeping set your intention to
dream towards the mandala of peace.

If you feel that your dream has touched upon a symbol that can be used
within the mandala of peace we are creating, or on a particular relation of
peace, please let us know. Just send your comment, picture or dream to:

http://www.worlddreamspeacebridge.org/dafumumonthly.htm

To join the World Dreams Peace Bridge discussion group, just send an e-mail
to worlddreams-subscribe@yahoogroups.com .
--------
end news




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Cover Artist, Laura Atkinson
"The Dream Essence"
http://tinyurl.com/7ogg8

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About the image "The Dream Essence"

In the dream, I recall holding my breath and looking under the surface of a
water source. Beneath, I see large bubbles containing flora. These bubbles
felt like gelatin, and the flora that is growing inside are meant to be used
as nutritional supplements for people.

Artist Statement / Bio:

As a former photojournalist, Laura Atkinson has explored the links between
art, visual therapy, and the realities of the dream state for many years.
Her work, while being a deeply personal exploration of her own dreams, jars
the viewer with its beauty of light interplay, form, and design. Her work
has a tactile beauty that brings viewers into her private world while
simultaneously giving one the permission to touch, feel, and experience each
piece, while making it part of his/her own world, language, and life. She
has been also been studying and photographing energy fields using a Kirlian
technique, discovering the wonders of digital photomontage, as well as
working on a large, handpainted silk project involving 30 dreams that were
submitted by various IASD members and friends.

Website: http://www.arthatglows.com Email: ArtThatGlows@...
========================================


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An Excerpt From The Lucid Dream Exchange

By Lucy Gillis

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Back in May of 2005, Linda Lane Magallón tackled the subject of dream
characters in part one of her four part series. Are dream characters real
people? Do they have a will, or a consciousness of their own? Are they all
the same, or could some be lifeless projections? Join Linda as she takes us
on a journey through her own thoughts and intriguing dreams. You may not
look at your dream characters in quite the same way again!

Dream Characters and Reality Checks Part Four:
Mutual Dreaming
(c) 2005 Linda Lane Magallón

"What you see is what you get!" said Geraldine Jones. On most every episode
of The Flip Wilson Show, she would strut around and show herself off. "What
I see is what I get!" think lucid dreamers when they spy a dream character.
Literal identification is a hard habit to break.

The audience of The Flip Wilson Show television program had an edge over
dreamers. They'd spent plenty of time looking at TV, comparing it with
physical life. Over time, through conscious observation, they'd been able to
teach themselves the subtle differences between a fictional drama, a
fanciful commercial and a factual documentary - between what is "real" and
"unreal." When Geraldine made her proclamation, it was time for a chuckle.

For "Geraldine" was actually comedian Flip Wilson in drag. His falsetto
voice and women's clothes didn't fool the audience one bit. They could
readily see past his disguise.

The same can't be said for dreamers. We haven't spent an equal amount of
time noticing and interacting with dream characters in a conscious manner.
The dream screen isn't nearly so handy as the TV screen; there's always a
time lag before we can contrast the visuals of the dream with the sights of
waking life. I was just as prone to the Flip Wilson Syndrome as everyone
else: accepting dream characters as they appear without questioning my
assumptions. I didn't realize that the dream is a jokester. It can clothe
itself in all sorts of special effects, and I'm not just talking about the
scenery.

Spirit guides, deceased relatives, probable selves, gods, fairies and
beasts: these are just a few of the identities attributed to dream
characters. Which of them, among the often bewildering variety, actually
fits the dream you had last night? In order to comprehend dream characters
in general, I suggest we start with live human beings. Maybe we can learn to
see through the Geraldine-façade to the actual person underneath.

Why Pay Attention to Human Beings?

1. Agreement About Reality
Most humans act as if the material world is real. They also think they're
real and are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. So the first
reason for using live humans is a practical one: mutual agreement that real
beings coexist in a shared physical universe. Since the vote of the majority
isn't always correct, consensus is no proof. But this common ground is a
good place to start our discussion, whether we end here or not.

2. Relative Stability of the Physical Counterpart The physical world is more
fixed than the worlds of dream, altered states and psi. It doesn't morph as
much as they do, nor slip and slide in time.
This consistency makes the more stable waking versions of its inhabitants a
useful standard for comparison, when contrasted with their dreaming
counterparts.

3. Shared Perceptual Apparatus
No matter who or what a dream character actually is, we still have to use
human perceptual apparatus to perceive it. Our inner vision is dependent on
our outer vision (people blind from birth don't have visual dreams). Our
outer vision perceives the physical world only partially (not like a
microscope, telescope or x-ray machine). Whatever we do "see" must have
something that our human hardware can latch onto or we will remain oblivious
to it. In addition, our human software, such as intuition, reason, judgment,
culture, language and reporting skills, combine to produce the final
perceptual product. Seen together, we can realize group disadvantages (we
don't have ultraviolet, magnetic or heat vision like some animals do). We
can discover species-wide quirks (we have anthropomorphic tendencies: we are
apt to assign human characteristics to animals, aliens and angels). What's
actually in front of us may be quite different from what we think we see.

4. Assessment of Hardware and Software
We are less likely to ignore or gloss over our specific talents...and
handicaps...if they are seen against a backdrop of multiple events. We are
less likely to consider our dream vision to be perfect and our capacity to
identify dream characters to be unflawed when we compare perceptual skills
with fellow humans.

5. Feedback
A live human being is the only entity in this shared universe who can give
us feedback about private presumptions. Whereas we can observe from afar the
obvious surface appearance and behavior of any visual element, only a verbal
human can tell us about what is hidden from sight, such as thoughts,
feelings, emotions and subtle senses. These are the very components likely
to participate in and influence the construction of our dreams.

Reality Checks Linking Humans and Dream Characters

On an informal basis, we can look and listen to one another, sharing notes
about what we see whether awake or asleep. But if we're serious about doing
reality checks on human dream characters, the two main avenues of study
involve a comparison of our dreams with another person's waking life and a
comparison of our dreams with another person's dreams.

1. Lab Experimentation
The most stringent reality check involving dreams or psi is experimentation
in a laboratory using the scientific method. There have been lab experiments
in dream telepathy and waking psi, as well as nonpsi phenomena like
subliminal perception. Valuable information comes from lab reports,
scientific journal articles, lectures and books written by the scientists.
Perhaps the most revealing option is to communicate directly with lab
subjects and scientists to discover what wasn't in the published reports.
For example, there have been no official lab projects involving two or more
people dreaming together, although I have heard the results of unofficial
studies.

2. Field Research
Field research in dream telepathy, precognition and clairvoyance can provide
basic information on psi. However, the most applicable research involving
dream characters is shared dreaming: deliberate dreaming with other people
with the intent to connect in the dreamstate. My initial research in this
area was with people who had never met in waking life, so a baseline of psi
versus nonpsi results could be established. In the major projects, there was
a facilitator or group to provide checks and balances and assure that
everybody was being honest. Specifically, the Mutual Lucid Dreaming Protocol
requires a "fair witness" to oversee communication between dreamers. Ed
Kellogg, Robert Waggoner and I co-created it.

Three Aspects of Dream Characters

As a result of my research, I became aware that we needed to re-think the
elements involved in dream identification, since they weren't quite the same
as waking life. I decided to focus on three aspects. First, let's consider
the case when all 3 aspects refer back to you, when the dream is totally
"your stuff."

1. The Source of the Image-As-Perceived (the Picture) Your own personal
hardware and software produces the imagery in your mind, whether you are
awake or asleep, whether your eyes are open or closed. Thus, an inner
picture you'd identify as Aunt Annie would be your snapshot, your painting.
As if your mind were a camera, you project an image of Aunt Annie built from
whatever visual memory data has been collected and stored. Your dreams need
not be an exact copy of waking life; your creative mind is quite capable of
mixing, matching and expanding upon whatever is seen with physical eyes. You
have whole Aunt Annie memories, but you also have common memories of
component parts like movement, speech, color and form that will help animate
the Aunt Annie dream.

2. The Source of the Information That Produces the Image In the waking state
and lucid dreams, you might deliberately think of your aunt and have a
picture spring up in response. But usually the process is unintentional and
the image arises spontaneously from whatever bodily sensations,
anticipations and emotions, feelings and subtle senses you associate with
Aunt Annie. Although memory of a real person is triggered, the Annie
character can star in a dream story that is totally fanciful. Your own
information is ladled onto her image and used for your own purposes. In such
a case, the only thing taken from Aunt Annie would be a visual snapshot of
her façade, her picture, her mask.

3. The Presence or Absence of That Energy Source in the Dream When the dream
acts like a reflecting glass, it bounces back what physical mirrors do not.
Thoughts, feelings, sensations and emotions can resound from your inner echo
chamber. In this case, if Aunt Annie feels real, it's because you are real.
You would be sensing your own "realness" returning to you, while
concurrently seeing an Aunt Annie façade.

Whether awake or asleep, your vision is only as good as your picture; your
picture is only as good as your vision. Because you are always using your
personal hardware and software, you are consistently the one who creates
your own surface picture of reality.

But the information and energy behind the picture? That can vary.

You could be dreaming about Aunt Annie; having an in-dream reverie about the
real person. When information is co-opted from waking life, Aunt Annie can
seem quite realistic. The information that forms the dream story could be
known consciously, but it's often not. While awake, you may have picked up
Aunt Annie information subconsciously, subliminally or at the periphery of
your vision. Perhaps it's a certain attitude, skin tone or gesture that
alerts you to the fact that Annie is pregnant. This you don't consciously
know while awake, but your subconscious mind reads the signs correctly and
plays back that information in a dream.

Therefore, just because you dream about Aunt Annie doesn't necessarily mean
you are in connection with her as you sleep. Nor does it prove that she is
present in the dream. It doesn't guarantee that you obtain dream information
directly from Aunt Annie or that you dream with Aunt Annie. You may be
relying totally on information obtained while awake or fantasized as you
slumber. Or a little of both. Because these options are highly probable, be
prepared to take full responsibility for your dreams. And full credit for
you extrasensitive sensory perception. Only sometimes may you be dealing
with influence beyond it.

If Aunt Annie is not standing at the end of the bed tickling your toes or
her voice isn't whispering suggestions into your ears as her audio tape
plays at your bedside; if the information could not have reached you via
normative sensory means, then it's possible you are experiencing dreampsi.
Precognition, clairvoyance, telepathy or empathy could be contributing
factors. Shared dreaming would extend psi beyond information retrieval and
involve energy transfer, especially the energy of presence. It's only when
these 2 aspects occur together - her information and her energy - that you
would truly be dreaming "with" Aunt Annie, meeting her in dreamspace. You
may notice that, in defining a dream meeting, I've said nothing of how the
picture of Aunt Annie looks.

The Mask Atop A Live Human Being

Now, let's turn the tables. Suppose that you're actually dreaming about or
from or with Aunt Annie, but the dream picture doesn't match her waking
appearance. Could the dream version of Annie take on an alternate
appearance, like an celebrity, spook or past life self? Could Annie, in some
sense, actually be there but not look like you'd expect her to look?

I had created my recurring dream character, Willette Nicholson, in
imagination before she suddenly showed up in the dream state. So, I already
knew that I had provided the picture. My breakthrough dream, although a
seemingly spontaneous event, was actually predated by an intense period of
incubation. Later, I found I could deliberately induce Willie dreams if I
held onto that intent prior to sleep. Within lucid dreams, I could conjure
up her image by willpower alone. "Will-it," I had called her in that first
lucid dream, not Willette. To have her appear the way she did, I just had to
"will it." But who was the actor underneath the surface appearance? Was she
only a reflection of me? Sometimes it seemed so, but not always.

Gradually, I came to recognize parallels with physical existence. For
instance, the day after I met a female psychic at a New Age bookstore, I
dreamt of Willie as a psychic. In waking life I introduced a working
colleague named Leona to another woman; during the night I dreamt that I
introduced Leona to Willie. After I'd traveled to Jill Gregory's Dream
Library and Archive to help her organize the books and shelves, I dreamt
Willie and I were heroically lifting a library floor.

Once, I dreamt that Willie was being introduced in public, along with
Superman. Incongruously, Superman was wearing a flat top hat. At the time,
Kent Smith, Ilona Marshall and I were co-creating the Dream Definition
Dialogue interpretation technique to present in public. Kent often wore a
flat top hat. If Superman was my version of Kent, then Willie would
be...Ilona. Although the waking versions of such events involved several
women, the dream versions contained only one costume.

Another time, I visited a dream group and talked animatedly about lucid
dreaming with a fellow dreamer named Brad. Whereas I supported Brad's
enthusiasm about lucid dreams, the leader of the group castigated us by
inferring that, since Brad enjoyed manipulating the scenery so much, passive
non-lucid dreams (and the people who dreamt them) were more spiritual than
lucid ones. I talked with Brad afterwards, reaffirming his active behavior.
That night I dreamt I was flying with Willie when she was struck by
lightning and fell out of the sky. I had to dive down and rescue her before
she hit the ground. For a long time, I didn't see the connection between
being shut down in the dream group and being shocked out of the sky. That's
because I was expecting Willie's waking counterpart to be a woman, not a
man. Evidently, I could plaster Willie's image atop anyone, no matter what
the gender.

Instances like these gave me the sense that I was leading parallel lives: a
mundane variety in waking life and a magical version in the dream state. In
waking life, I was Linda interacting with friends and colleagues; in
dreaming life I was Casey the flyer who could levitate objects, teleport
through walls and rescue people by flying away with them. Quite frankly, I
preferred the dreaming version! However, in each of these cases, I felt that
I was dreaming about Ilona, Brad and the rest. There was no reason to
suspect influence other than day residue and no way to check in the
dreamstate, since these were all non-lucid dreams.

Mutual Willie

After I began co-dreaming with dreaming partners, I discovered that Willie
could be a flag for mutual dreams. If she appeared in either of our dreams,
it was highly probable that they would contain psi correspondences. These
correlations could be similar symbols (a deep hole in the floor), similar
scenery (a resort hotel) or similar events (a bus trip in San Francisco).

One of the most vivid examples of dream/waking connection was a
precognitive-telepathic dream. Several months before mutual dream researcher
Jean Campbell took a trip to Europe, I dreamt of meeting Willie there. The
correspondences between Jean's upcoming trip and my long, lucid dream were
very striking. This dream occurred before Jean and I had ever met in the
physical, although we had been penpals for a short time.

The most consistent recipient of the Willie costume was my husband, Manny.
I'd dreamt Willie gave me a gold chain after Manny gave me a gold necklace
for my birthday. Definitely day residue. I already knew that Manny had a
harem fantasy when I had a harem dream with Willie; however, that same night
he had a lucid dream in which he tried to "will" a woman to do his bidding.
Synchronicity. I dreamt Willie picking up pieces of a DOS computer (unusual
for me, since I own a Mac). After I woke, Manny told me an incident from the
previous day: he was trying to fix a DOS computer at work when he dropped
some of the pieces on the ground. Quite likely a case of psi.

The dream world had provided me with multiple examples of Willie's picture
atop another human, but I was so caught up in the need for Willie to be a
real, independent being that I ignored the clues. The dream had to become
more specific. I dreamt of meeting Willie. Immediately afterwards, the dream
repeated itself, and I dreamt of meeting Jean Campbell. The dream was trying
its best to tell me something, but I wasn't listening. When that didn't get
my attention, it became even more literal. I dreamt of making love to
Willie, who morphed into Manny. Several times I closely observed this
morphing process as it occurred in lucid dreams. In each case, the Willie
picture melted into Manny's image, not the other way around.

Despite having to use the clothing I provided, a Willie dream could reveal
information about other people. Beyond sensory stimuli, there was
extrasensory perception in operation. But were any of the people behind the
mask coming to visit?

Dream Presence

Waking psi experiments, like remote viewing, reveal that it's possible to
perceive at a distance, yet remain seated in the here and now. So the
perception of accurate dreampsi information about Aunt Annie doesn't
necessarily mean that she is present in your dream. She could be the
broadcasting source of information that your sleeping mind recognizes as
having Aunt Annie qualities, and in response, attaches an Aunt Annie image
to it.

On the other hand, full-blown presence presumes that your consciousness
travels to another dreamer or that he comes to you. Sometimes this happens
in physical terms. Once, before completely returning to the waking state, I
had the sense of Willie hovering over me, smiling, although there wasn't
much of a picture to accompany this feeling. Soon thereafter, my daughter
Teresa actually came into my bedroom and hovered over me. When I opened my
eyes, she said, "Look at my face." "You're a clown," I responded. As part of
a costume for Halloween, Teresa had "smiling" makeup painted on her face.
Talk about a living mask!

My definition of "presence" has little to do with whether my partner's
astral body appears in my dream. To me, presence involves the emergence of
energy as contrasted with information. The full equation for psi is
extrasensory perception plus psychokinesis. In dreaming terms, this means
that the tactile senses come into play: gesture, motion, speed, rhythm being
among them. It means, for instance, that if you touch your partner in your
dream, she dreams of being touched. Is this somatic experience simply a case
of information received, then converted by the dreamer's mind into
sensation? Or is it direct tactile influence? This is one of those areas
that still requires a lot of reality checks, but my preliminary
investigation leads me to conclude that another person's energy can be
present in a dream. When this happens, the dream character feels real
because it is real. You are sensing the real energy of another human being
behind the mask. The mask need not look like that particular human being,
though.

The other person doesn't have to be conscious of sending information or
energy your way for the transfer to occur. This makes it difficult to
discover correlations with dreamers who aren't very self-aware. Just because
you're lucid in a dream doesn't mean the other person is. A successfully
shared lucid dream would require information plus energy plus conscious
awareness. Ironically, it does not have to require the same picture! There
doesn't even need to be a picture for psi connection to occur. It could be
an audio or tactile experience, instead.
Summary

This adventure with Willie was far more complex than I've had the time to
tell. It was also a journey into altered states other than the dream. It was
an eye-opener about how much we project rather than perceive, and how much
Western culture encourages projection, while concurrently rejecting even the
possibility of extrasensory perception.

To summarize, these are the most important things I learned from doing
reality checks with human beings.

Picture, presence and parallel information are three different aspects of
dream characters, each to be considered separately when trying to make an
identification. Just because Annie appears in your dream doesn't mean it
really is Annie. Just because an angel appears in your dream doesn't mean it
really is an angel. Or an alien. Or an animated cartoon. The picture might
be a mask for your own information and energy. It could be a costume for
another human being. Or there can be any combination or permutation of these
aspects.

Can our dream pictures be costumes for real entities other than humans? To
my own satisfaction, I've concluded that animals needn't look like they do
in waking life. A family pet with four legs can appear without them, as an
eel, worm or a puff of fur (I suspect this is picture shorthand for its
bubble-shaped aura).

In this immensely large universe, I would never suppose that humans are the
only sentient inhabitants. However, I think an alien or alternate essence
would have a real problem trying to communicate with humanity. Humans are so
prone to plastering their presumptions that the presentment of such
"significant others" would likely be warped beyond recognition. Personally,
I think humans have a lot of homework ahead of them before they'll be
invited to join any planetary or astral alliance.

But these last remarks are opinions. They've not been reality checked.

Determining the difference between another's presence and our own
reflections is not any easy task, but by using humans as our standard, I
believe we can develop the identification process into an art and science:
an art of subtle sensing backed by a science of verification. If we don't
know the difference, we'll never understand or even realize the existence of
the greater mysteries of the universe. And, for sure, we'll never get the
cosmic joke.


********************************
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Dream: Are You Lonely There Tonight, My Love?
Stan Kulikowski II

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DATE : 18 jan 2006 07:56
DREAM : are you lonely there tonight, my love?

=( yesterday was monday. it rained most of the day and grew cold in the
evening. i spent the afternoon working in my garage with the paneling i am
putting up in my bathroom. that task is almost done so i can start to
rebuild the garage door which was damaged during one of the hurricanes last
summer. at the end of the evening i was happy to start into season three of
_smallville_ on the video player, my mother's annual two months of _upstairs
downstairs_ finally finished the night before. i got to bed just after
midnight. )=

the biology research lab is rather crowded with cages and various animals
squeaking and moving around in that fidgety meaningless kind of motion that
caged creatures do. it looks more like those tragic pet stores in that
respect than a serious research facility.

through the cacophony chirps and coughs, i hear a beautiful bird call that
repeats a couple times. i look over the rows of cages at the many feathered
birds and try to pick out which one is repeating that simple song, but i can
not. it is too rarely made and there are just too many birds.

she is worried. in a tank in the middle of the room there is a small tiger,
not full grown, its head just above the level of the liquid.
the head research scientist comes in with a medical doctor.

"so, the tumor on its liver is not any smaller?" the scientist asks the
other.

"i am afraid not." the doctor replies. "it has been a long time and still
we can not remove or lessen the lesion. we should euthanize the animal and
move on."

the scientist reaches down to pull the tiger's ears more fully open and
looks sadly at it. the tank is filled with a thick, clear viscous glycerin
that is keeping it alive. there is only a small portion of its orange and
black skin still clinging to its back and shoulders. the skin around its
belly is gone so its guts and viscera are being supported directly only by
the glycerin. on its right side, the dark liver is swollen and distended
within the liquid. the tiger can only live within the confines of this
tank.

"before we kill this creature," she says to the scientist "you must allow
me some time to prepare it for its death." it seems somewhat paradoxical
that laboratories which study life must administer so much death. it seems
that the final experience tells us the most about the living. she pets the
tiger's head. she no longer cares if the glycerin bath gets the sleeves of
her white lab coat wet.

the scientist looks a little uncomfortable. "what you do is make the
creature happy for a short time and give it hope where there is none.
it is going to die soon and there is nothing we can do about it."

"i can give it some contentment even for that little time." she says,
standing her ground. "without the feeling of that someone cares for you,
life has little meaning on its own and that is what makes death so
frightening. no one can die well who has not been loved."

the scientist shakes his head a little but can not deny her. she is
qualified enough to have started her own laboratory and competed for his
grants, but she chose to work here with him. she felt her ministry to the
dying was more important than a long career in the politics of grant writing
broken by brief attempts of scientific insight. discovery is important, but
it comes so erratically at such a cost to our humanity. the pathetic tiger
raises its head above the glycerin to look at her.

i am walking outside the university building now. i am dressed in matching
set of pants and a vest, feeling somewhat fit and trim. i am in a victorian
labyrinth sculpted from tall continuous channels of shrubbery. i hope that
she will find me out here. i have been waiting for so long now, but must be
patient. as i round an outer corner of the maze two pretty college girls
pass me without noticing.

i think about my early studies of biology and how that profession took me no
where. i have kept my interests in plants and animals, more the latter, but
it is computers that have become the focus of my life. it seems now
somewhat odd that machines took over my life but there is a cleanness about
technology. it does not have mess and gore and grit, no sadness about
turning a circuit off for the last time. even the dust that collects
between wires and diodes comes from skin shed by the operators.

now i am in the supermarket with the singing group. an area has been
cleared in the produce section with several metal folding chairs.
four other young men are sitting with me while our leader stands in front
facing us ready to start the next song. we are all dressed in blue jeans
with a green and white checkered cowboy shirts and white scarves tied around
the neck.

across the aisles of groceries another group is singing and when they stop
it is our turn. i here her voice sing out the final note, faint but clear.

"why? why did it have to be this way?"

the leader starts our song now. the effect for someone shopping in the
store is to hear our song as an answer to the lyrics of the other tune.

"are you lonely there tonight, my love?
are you lonely there tonight?"

the other men are singing their parts in harmony, but i realize that i have
not opened my mouth. i will probably be kicked out of the band, but i know
that i could never sing worth the listening.

=( awake at 07:50. the 'she' throughout the three scenes in this dream is
not someone i know or could recognize. although i could see her in the
first part in the biology lab, it was like i could not look at her directly
and so can not describe her now. it seems like i was perhaps too shy to be
so direct, or that i was not really there in the lab like i was in the
labyrinth and grocery store. i have the strange feeling that she is someone
expected in my future, not from my past. there is a constant theme of
living things that have been captured and contained by human activities--
the cages in the lab, the shrubs severely cut into a maze of topiary and
finally the vegetables in the produce section of the store. nothing is in
its natural free state. and my ability to accurately record this dream has
failed somewhat. both the bird call at the start and the song lyrics at the
end had melodies associated with them which i could still remember when i
awoke but i do not have the skill with musical notation to write them, so
they are now lost as my weak dream memory fades. )=
--

. stankuli@...



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The Impossible Dream
Part 1: Identities in Process and Impossible Objects
The Postmodern Dreaming series on Transgressive Dreamwork
http://dreamgate.com/pomo/
Richard Catlett Wilkerson

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Electric Dreams Forward: Most of the readers of Electric Dreams are
familiar with Jung's tremendous influence on dreamwork, and how these
influences have been developed and have influenced the contemporary
dreamwork and dreamworkers. But what about the development of dreamwork
from the more followers of Freud? Many feel that psychoanalytic developments
in dreamwork ended with Freud, and with some legitimacy in the claim. Freud
himself complained at the end of his life that his followers had not done
enough to develop his dream theories further. I pretty much agree with this
assessment, but feel that some of the more radical schools of psychotherapy
that didn't really develop techniques in dreamwork, could have, and their
theories can still provide source material for modern day dreamworkers to
develop approaches to dreamwork in areas not typically explored by Jungian
based dreamwork and the dreamwork trends spawned by post-Jungians. Over the
past decade, the Postmodern Dreaming Series has suggested several
alternative routes of dreamwork development using the theories developed by
Jean Baudrillard, Felix Guattari, Gilles Deleuze and others. Most of these
theories rely heavily the work of French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan. Not
only has Lacan brought into the theoretic realm the importance of language
and representational systems, but he has also offered some interesting
portals through which the subjective dreamer can see his/her dreams from a
political viewpoint, and the "secret" attempts of the self to find itself in
these political ideologies. I would call this dreamwork "transgressive" to
the degree that it is iconoclastic and reveals dreams as the playful fool
who says the emperor is wearing no clothes. Besides being a jumping-off
point for most all poststructural theory, Lacan also develops a position
that is situated between essentialism and relativistic constructionism; that
is, between the notion that only one interpretation of a dream is correct,
and the notion that any interpretation of a dream is a legitimate as any
other. The Emperor's lack of clothes creates a location where we can at
least talk about clothing, and make judgments about what clothes may or may
not fit. No imagined outfit (ideology) is going to fully robe the emperor
(reality). But this doesn't mean that reality or ideology don't exist, just
that their incompatibility generates a creative movement.


How Lacan might be appropriated for dreamwork

[As mentioned above] The field of dreamwork is usually left to clinicians
following Jungian models and grassroots dreamworkers who use variations of
analogy and generalization to interpret dreams. Lacan's psychoanalytic
theory offers an alternative view to interpretation by association that may
allow access to more radically disparate areas of psyche that are not
accessible though associate and analogic techniques.

In Lacan's theory, each element needs to be interpreted from three different
angles at the same time, the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real. These
terms (Registers) will be explored more fully in later essays. For now, the
Imaginary can be seen as the pre-linguistic world of child and mother where
gaps in wholeness are covered in fantasy. The Symbolic is not like Jung's
symbolic, but used to mean the world of representational symbolism, mainly
language. The Real is what eludes us, what intrudes into our fantasies of
wholeness, breaks through our sense that the Symbolic has completely
described reality.

A reassessment of identity is also provided by Lacan. When the waking or
dreaming subject attempts and fails to identify him/herself in static images
or in representations and symptoms, then frustration, disappointment and
alienation dominate. (I wanted to be the "wife" but the role is not
something I can fully identify with. I wanted to be "Roy Rogers" but
something continues to intrude in on this fantasy.) When a process of
identification emerges which allows the subject to situate him/her/itself in
a larger variety of roles without the demand for these identifications to be
whole and total, there is more enjoyment and satisfaction.

Dreamwork can then function to facilitate deconstruction and reconstruction
in two ways. As an interpretation of totalizing identifications and their
alternatives, dreamwork offers post-dream examinations of stagnant
identities and creative alternatives. For lucid dreamers, the new freedoms
(of identity) offer the dreamer a chance to directly and consciously explore
alternative identities during the dreamtime.

Just as with Kant's third critique (of Beauty) and his reconciliation of the
two main truths of art (its all subjective/ones own opinion vs. everyone
ought to recognize this piece as beautiful), Lacan offers dreamworkers a
reconciliation between the extreme views that the dream means anything we
want it to vs. the dream has a meaning everyone ought to recognize. For
Kant, the resolution had to do with how the genius spontaneity of nature
provides our understanding, through some objects, with a feeling of
purposiveness that everyone has, but is experienced (and hence interpreted),
individually. In Lacan's theory, as I hope to show, we go through a similar
process of development where we are found to have abandoned our original
selves to acquire an identity through the use of a representational system,
a system that will never fully actualize this identity, as all identities
[developed via representation] fall short of who we fully are, just as all
words fall short of what they describe or signify. Just as Kant's
individuals must fill in the lack of meaning in the face of beauty's
purposive purposelessness, Lacan's individuals must fill in the lack of
identity left in the process of representation. It is not a work that is
done one time and left as complete, but a condition of life, a process that
is never ending. This is how great works of art continue to inspire us, how
nature continues to infuse us, and how life continues to draw us into
forever re-making our selves.


The incomplete identity of self.

Let's create a little story. Before we learn language, there is sense of
self that is diffuse and we can take pleasure in the simplest of things, the
touch of a cloth on the face, the drowsy moments before sleep, the amazing
array of colors and shapes around us. Its all pretty blissful, except when
it isn't. We get hungry, cold and hot, and can't do much about it. We pee
all over ourselves and can't even hold a glass of milk without spilling it.
Then something magical happens. We say something and mom appears, nearly
every time we do it. We say something else and milk or toys appear. We
become so enraptured by this process of language acquisition that don't
realize we are losing touch with who we were before. And the hope that these
words would fill in the gaps that would make us complete is soon dashed as
well. "I'm Roy Rogers," the little boy proclaims, and for a moment, its
almost true. I'm Mr Smith's daughter, she says. But something intrudes to
remind us we are more than this, more than can ever be told in words. This
lack is now found in two directions. There is the lost childhood and
pre-linguistic bliss we can't recover. And there is the incompleteness of
the words and representations we fill in with temporary fantasies. That is,
when I look at that object and say "desk" I know that word can only capture
a tiny piece of the object, even though I think of the desk as a complete
object. There is always more that escapes the words we give to it, and even
escapes the conscious sensing of the object. The Real is covered up with an
imaginary wholeness, but it breaks through. How can we tolerate this
inaccessibility and loss of direct connection with ourselves and the world?
Prohibition. If I make something prohibited (no, you can't have your mother)
then all of a sudden the diffuse disconnection becomes possible again. The
possibility of having it is the other side of something being prohibited. It
escapes our attention that we didn't even know what we wanted until it was
prohibited. This gets the flow of desire going again. End little story.

Psycho-erotically,(in terms of desire) there are elements of our psyche
which are incomplete, which we continually have to deal with. Typically we
try to cover them over with personae, masking their incompleteness with a
sense of wholeness. But symptoms break through. To the degree we can engage
with these symptoms, is the degree that these cut-off aspects of psyche can
emerge, not a full finished objects, but as works in progress, that can
produce connections to the world in ways beyond our imagination.

This is true in social identification as well. Identification politics is
revealed as the politics of impossibility. (I'm a Republican, I'm a
Democrat, I'm a Green, I'm apolitical…) That is, we also cover up our lack
with ideologies and other socially available constructions. As Lacanian
interpeter, Stavrakakis (36) points out, its not what we are, but what we
are lacking that is in Lacan's viewfinder. That is, socio-pollitical
objects of identification used to fill the lack.

This lack and what fills it, is our concern.

"Anyone who has ever tried to recount a dream to someone else is in a
position to measure the immense gap, the qualitative incommensurability,
between the vivid memory of the dream and the dull impoverished words that
we can find to convey it. Yet this incommensurability, between the
particular and the universal, between the vécu and the language itself, is
one of language itself, is one in which we dwell all our lives, and it is
from it that all works of literature and culture arise. " Lacan


Problematics of Structure in Lacan

I wake up and write down this dream: I'm in a building with some people when
my friend asks me a question. This distracts me from my attention to the
project I was involved with and I get angry with them. A large animal barges
into the building and I wake up.
Ok, so I've written my dream down and I'm pretty pleased with myself for
recalling and recording this dream. Then I think about the details of a
dream. What kind of building was it and where in the building was I? Who
were the people I was with and what did they look like? And so on. That is,
the description I initially thought represented the dream so well was
actually quite an inadequate description, if we talk about 'fullness' of
description in any sense of the word.

Generally I could just write this off as the problem of language, that its
only a way to speak about reality, but isn't reality itself. I always feel a
remainder between my description and my memory of the dream. But wait,
without the words I use to tell myself to remember the dream, it is
typically forgotten, evaporated before breakfast. And without the words I
use to describe the dream in more detail, those details would be lost. Now
I'm in a situation. The words I use poorly represent the experience, but
without them I wouldn't have an experience to complain about.

This is the situation that describes for Lacan our position in life in
general. We sense there is much more than words, but have only words to
experience and express it. (or some kind of representational system of art,
music, movement…).

But wait, it gets worse. Not only are objects in my world dependent on a
language that inadequately represents them, but my identity suffers from a
similar problem. As mentioned the "Little Story," as children we
play-identify with the whole person, "I'm Roy Rogers, I'm a fireman" and yet
we can't fully achieve this. A son may want to identify with his father, and
finds in later life that he can never get his father's approval. The
attempts to fully identify fail us, and in doing so, we have instead a
situation or process of continual identifications, and unending stream of
self discovery. (Its no wonder the Self-discovery industry continues to
grow). This puts us in a odd situation, where the *place* of reality and the
*place* of the self are important, but these things as things-in-themselves
elude us. Looking at the locus of identification and the locus of where the
real is produced, is another way of saying we are looking at the process of
what is happening, the shifting structure. This is what Lacan's theory
addresses so well, this shifting structure and place were identity and the
real are produced.

Why Lacan when he doesn't really do dreamwork?

Most dreamworkers in the States have come to know a wide variety of imported
and homegrown psychologies; Freud's interpretation of dreams, Jung's rich
dreamwork, Perl's group gestalt work, and the influence of many other
schools. But dreamwork from Lacan's version of psychoanalysis is rarely
discussed or written about. Perhaps because there is so little of it. A
Lacanian once make a joke about interpretive dreamwork at a conference by
drawing a bunch of arrows circling around one another in a tangled knot.
This, he said, was a dream. Then he added even more of a jumble around the
mess and say, this was a dream interpreted.

While those dreamworkers familiar with Lacan may appreciate the implied
joke regarding the impossible situation in which signification has landed
us, and how no addition of word will cure this issue, those same
dreamworkers may lament the lack of awareness in the Lacanian community
about the power of dreamwork. True, we all know the superficial level of
dreamwork where a dream mixed with confusing twists and turns is given an
interpretation that only adds to the confusion or clarifies in a way that
ruins the mystery of the dream. But this is not dreamwork at its finest
moment. And so to toss all dreamwork out because some of it compounds the
problem, seems unfair.

On the other hand, for dreamworkers to turn away from Lacan and his rich
culture of ideas is, I feel, a great mistake, and will result in a loss of
important ideas and practices, leading to an impoverished field of
dreamwork. More specifically, I feel that dreamwork has tended to develop
in a particularly subjective direction away from the social and political,
and closely adheres to the subjective interpretive approach, ie, all parts
of the dream are me. There is the dream daddy me, there is the dream tree
me, and so on. True, this is part of an important and useful approach that
suggests we get our own house in order before telling other people in the
neighborhood that their houses need to be in order as well. There is in this
technique, of owning all parts of the dream as oneself, the taking up of the
events in dream-life as one's responsibility. This leads to working on one's
own projection/boards before complaining about the speck in someone else's
eye.

While this is always good advice at one level, and doing one's own
psychological work always seems to make for better relations all around, it
ignores that we are already always thrown into social relations and have
responsibilities to other that are not simply dealt with inter-subjectively
by the ego. Seeing poverty in the world as symbolic of our own inner
poverty can lead to a better relation with the inner soul, but only helps
the overall issue in a very round-about way. (That is, the person seeing
their own impoverished soul may become a better person and improve the world
in some way, but this doesn't necessarily put food on the table of a child
in Nigeria.)

But I don't feel the solution is to abandon the intersubjective dreamwork
method for literalism. That is, a dream of poverty stricken child is not
automatically interpreted as the call to find a poverty stricken child in
the waking world (though that may be a profound response). Dreaming of
wolves knocking down one's door and waking up only to reinforce one's doors
around the house is, I feel, completely missing the point. At least, its
missing Lacan's point that subjectivity is socio-political and undermines
the old notions of separation of individual and social.

The notion of taking on a theoretical orientation that challenges and
undermines theoretical orientations may provide dreamwork with a theory that
can hold its own unconscious.

In Part I of this essay I'm going to select the notion of the ultimately
impossible and how, because it is impossible, it can drive a dream
narrative.

Let's look at a few examples from two Lacanians, Jean-Claude Milner and
Slavoj Zizek, and compare these examples to common dream imagery. They
reveal the fantasy aspect of desire through the paradoxes given by the
ancient Greek philosopher, Zeno, and Eleatic school student of Parmenides.
The school maintained that reality was one, unchanging and motionless,
apprehended properly by the mind rather than the senses. Milner used Zeno's
paradoxes *not* as statements of philosophical or empirical truth but as
literary devices exemplifying the staging of desire in/as fantasy. In other
words, we can look at them as paradigmatic ways in which desire drives the
dream, but remains hidden and off-stage.

In the first scene, the Paradox of Continuous Approach, the object can never
be obtained but always seems to be getting closer. Through clever
philosophical argument, Zeno shows that Achilles can never catch Hector, but
neither can Hector escape Achilles. (see Collinson, 1987 in bibliography for
example) This is often experienced in dreams, either not ever being able to
clearly catch someone or something, and not being able to clearly get away
from some pursuer. Lacan points out that the issue here is the circulation,
and that no matter what we do to obtain the object-cause, it always eludes
us. And the opposite is true as well, no matter what we do to elude the
pursuer, we cannot get away. Typically this is explained as being the result
of the intrapsychic nature of a dream. Since all parts of the dream are
really parts of us, goes the argument, then of course we can never get away
from them. This argument is less satisfying when it’s the opposite, that we
can never reach the goal, or that the dream ends once the goal is reached.
Note all the dreams of being lost, trying to find one's way back, trying to
find the way home. The maze dreams of not being able to find one's way out
can be seen in this paradigm, as well as the next Paradox of Cheated
Movement.

In the Paradox of Cheated Movement, Zeno tries to show that no matter how
much we act to change, we are always in the same place. Hercules fires arrow
after arrow but Zeno proves that its impossible and they go nowhere. For an
arrow to reach its target, it must go half way to the target. But then it
must also go half way to the half way point. This division of distance the
arrow must travel can be infinitely divided, keeping the arrow from ever
moving.

Note the stories of Tantalus in Hades and the curse of Midas. Tantalus,
after trying to steal the food of the gods (which might be seen as the
object which would eternally feed us, with life as well as other hungers) is
condemned to eternal need in Hades. "There he stood up to his chin in water,
but whenever he bent to slake his burning thirst, the pool dried up. Boughs
of fruit hung over his head, but when he raised his arms to pluck them, the
wind blew them out of his reach. A stone, moreover, was suspended over him
and threatened at any moment to fall and crush him" (Tripp, 1970, pg. 543).

For the famous Midas, everything he desired and touched turned to gold and
became useless to him. Zizek points out that when we demand an object, that
the object goes through a magical transubstantiation. The object takes on
fantasy and produces desire. Mother's milk becomes a token of her love and
produces excess fantasy rather than just satisfying hunger.

We can begin to explore this switch of use-value to exchange value in our
dreams that have similar predicaments and then use the unobtainable object
as an index of our intersubjective relations. For example, that others
comply or don't comply with our demands shows how they confirm various
attitudes towards us. And again, all this requires that we let go (at least
momentarily) of the idea that the dream is *revealing* or *repressing* our
secret obtainable object. Rather, the creation comes from a different
quarter, the withheld object is *creating* or revealing our style of desire.
[Some people run to find their lost home, some drive, some ask others, each
of these reveals our relationship with the impossible object] The point in
reference to dreamwork might then be a shift from finding ways to get the
hidden object, to ways of helping it display and play itself out. For
example, making a shift from being desperate about finding one's way home,
to ways of enjoying the search, or even intentionally becoming more lost.
Just exactly how one interprets a dream that is past or lives through a
dream present or prepares for an upcoming dream is left up to the
individual. Desperately seeking home is not less legitimate than choosing to
stay lost. The point here is that one can shift one's relationship with the
object-cause of desire. Instead of compulsively being driven, one can
creatively be inspired.

Carl Jung went to a lot of time and trouble to shift people's attitude about
dreams being revealing rather than disguising. And I don't want to lose that
gain. But note that even Jung saw the psychic reality that the symbol was
trying to reveal as primarily unconscious. That is, the dream symbol holds
in consciousness a reconciling image, whose parts could not be conscious.
The reconciliation was of two or more realities that could not co-exist
together in the dreamer's rational mind at the same time. For Jung,
development or individuation could not proceed until the individual could
find ways to tolerate these opposites.

In the Paradox of Increasing Diminishment we can never get where we want to
go because of an infinite amount of half distances we would have to cross to
get there. Here the drive is again reveling in its circulation, in the path
itself, in play. Lacan says in Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis,
"When you entrust someone with a mission, the *aim* is not what he brings
back, but the itinerary he must take, The *aim* is the way taken... If the
drive may be satisfied without attaining what, from the point-of-view of a
biological totalization of function, would be the satisfaction of its end of
reproduction, it is because it is a partial drive, and its aim is simply
this return into circuit." (p. 179). The real purpose of a drive is simply
to reproduce itself. Half is double. And thus our horror when we diet and
try to diminish our desire simply to find it has increased. Again, note the
common dream theme of the desire to get somewhere and always having a
million diversions, sub-plots, mazes and distractions along the way. In
dreams, we often take the long road home, and things that we flee find us,
things try to rid ourselves of return in double force.

These literary paradoxes give us a way to approach the dream imagery which
allows for a new relationship with and to desire. Regardless of the
technique or style we use to approach dream imagery, there emerges now an
option to note the element which, from the viewpoint of desire, is producing
the image from off-stage. And an opportunity to come into a relationship
with dream imagery in a way that speaks to the circulation, or with the
desire.

Since the Lacanians deal with structure more than content and see the object
of desire as only visible indirectly (like the clue qua missing-clue found
by a detective at the scene of a crime: "Did you here those dogs Watson." "I
hear no dogs Holmes." "Exactly!") I'm going to shift for a moment back into
a Jungian paradigm to build a quick model that can be used with manifest
dream content.

Jung spoke of how important it is to hold the irreconcilable opposites of
the psyche in consciousness. If held long enough, a reconciling symbol will
emerge. The opposites spoken of here are incompatibles in one's life - like
desires and needs for mutually exclusive things. Jung felt it was always a
disaster to try and force these things together (identification with the
Self) or allow oneself to be tossed back and forth between them. Rather he
suggested that we differentiate them as far as humanly possible, that we
hold the tension between them until a symbol or image is produced that can
carry both the conscious and unconscious elements and allow us to reconcile
the incompatibles.

The question is always what kind of containers do we have to hold and
examine these incompatibles. I want to live forever with I'm going to die. I
want to be monogamous with I want to mate with everyone in sight. I want to
be thin, after I finish this bag of potato chips. One approach is to see the
dream itself as the container or holder of that which cannot yet be
expressed in consciousness any other way. To see our dreams as an already
mapped out playing and continuing of our unreconcilable desire means that
every dream is already a furthering of desire's project and is its own
reconciling symbol. The degree to which we want to come into relationship
with this process as co-creators will have more to do with our ability to
stay in the play of desire rather than our ability to "get" the objects we
seem to want in our dreams. This shifts the dream from just being a working
out of frustrations to an imaginary theater that uses frustration to produce
works of art and pleasure.

Models for dreamwork then shift to models of dreamplay. The skills needed
shift from abstracting and pulling back to embodying and drawing in.
Examination fantasies gives way to images of exploration and
experimentation. The tensions, rather than being worked out, are sought
after like the tensions of a stringed instrument. Structure shifts from
predetermined rules to trust and support found in the interplay. The older
structures, views and rules are not thrown away, but become revisioned as
imaginary platforms, each with their own desires and styles of presentation.
In this way we not only get to see the desire of which the fantasy is a
play, but also begin to participate and find enjoyment.

And so these dream paradoxes, the home we never get to, the lover who eludes
us, the crime for which we are eternally punished, the monsters we can never
escape, become imaginary, improvisational platforms, theaters of our desire.
And it is in this sense that they are gifts that allow us to remain in that
place where possibility and desire blow kisses to each other across the gap
that holds them together.

-------------
Read more about Postmodern Dreaming and Transgressive Dreamwork on the
Postmodern Dreaming Page http://www.dreamgate.com/pomo


Bibliography and notes:


Collinson, Diane (1987). _Fifty Major Philosophers_. New York: Croom Helm.

(Achilles and the tortoise: "Suppose a race run over 100 meters in which the
tortoise is given a 50-metre start on Achilles, It is impossible for
Achilles to overtake the tortoise; for by the time Achilles reaches the
tortoise's starting point, S, the tortoise has moved on to S1, and by the
time Achilles arrives at S1, the tortoise has advanced to S2, and so on.
thus Achilles never catches up with the Tortoise. The distance between them
will diminish _ad infinitum_ as they move from point to point but it will
never disappear." Collinson, pg. 14).

Freud, Sigmund (1924-50). _Collected Papers_. London: Hogarth Press.
Jung, C. G. (1953). _Collected Works_ . (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.

Lacan, Jacques (1977). _The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis_.
London: Hogarth Press.

Wilkerson, Richard C. (1995). Playing with Fire, The Object-Cause of Desire
at the Heart of the Dream. Electric Dreams 2(4).

Stavrakakis, Yannis (1999) Lacan and the Political. NY: Routledge.

Tripp, Edward (1970). _The Meridian Handbook of Classical Mythology_ New
York, NY: New American Library.

Zizek, Slavoj (1993). _Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan
through Popular Culture_. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.





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Dream : Continuance, Make For The Vital Spots
Stan Kulikowski II

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DATE : 23 dec 2005 06:47
DREAM : continuance, make for the vital spots

=( yesterday was thursday. i went for a checkup with my doctor, and she
seemed to think i was doing very well. during the day i continued to burn
DVD data disks for the multimedia course. i need 30 of them and each takes
about 40 minutes to burn at double speed.
my titanium powerbook may be slow but at least it is reliable in getting the
job done which the crappy XP pro machine is not, wasting as many disks as it
creates. during the evening i wrote the report for my web design class
which finishes that course. mother watched three episodes of _upstairs
downstairs_ before going to bed around 01:00. i got to sleep with little
difficulty. )=


my wife, susan, and our daughter are coming up the grassy hill somewhat
behind me. she is somewhat shorter than me with curly blonde hair. our
daughter is even a smaller version of her. i think that we must hurry a
little more or we will never get to our destination before dark, but i try
to keep myself patient. there is no reason why we can not be a little late
but usually i like to be on time if i can.

soon i find a man standing at the top of one of the grassy hills we have
been climbing it seems like all afternoon. he is lighting the fuse of a
rocket which points up into the sky like a finger. this rocket is a little
taller than the man. i turn around to discover that my wife and daughter
are gone. i am concerned about they got lost from me, but the stranger says
to me "do not worry, they have gone on ahead. they will meet you in
bendix, missouri."

i nod my head, accepting what he has just told me. bendix is a long way
from here. the rocket takes off with a whoosh but it does not go very far
up into the sky. about thirty meters off the ground it separates into a
second and third stage which fall back to earth.
out of the small nose cone i see two plastic tubes come out and fall back to
the ground just a few meters from us. the rest of the rocket come down well
away in the space between the next hill.

the man walks over to retrieve the two tubes, the longer one is about half a
meter in length, colored red and is flexible and slightly curved like a
section of plastic tubing that has been taken off a roll. the other tube is
similar but clear and a smaller diameter which could fit inside the first.
he hands me the larger on to hold.

"please come and save us." the tube says to me with the voice of my wife.
somehow the slight wind blowing over the end of the tube has resonated to
make this sound. i realize that i am holding my wife who has been changed
into this tube somehow. the smaller one is our daughter. i must go to
bendix missouri to transform them back into their natural bodies. i take
the other smaller tube from the stranger and start off on my journey.
bendix is a long way from here.

soon i come to a school for retarded children where i used to work.
going in the back door i see the room where i taught but much of the area
has changed. the class rooms are all empty and the smaller glass chamber
where i had my preparation room has tape over the windows and doors as if
prepared for hurricane winds.

my friend, bruce whitmarsh, comes up to greet me. "a lot has changed around
here since you were here last." he tells me unnecessarily. i can see that
the place has been abandoned. "come with me, i want to show you something."

i follow bruce down the hall. across the building is the gymnasium which we
cross into the workshops where the disabled people once made whatever
commercial products they could. all is empty and quiet here now.

bruce opens a glass case on one of the walls and takes out a VHS video
cassette. the dark plastic is somewhat worn and the paper label on its side
has the single word 'continuance' which can still be read. ah, this is the
video movie that we once made together. i am glad to see that a copy of it
still exists.

bruce goes over to a television nearby and plugs in the video tape.
the video starts to play, but as i watch i lose my perspective of watching,
having memories of when we filmed the scenes so it soon seems that i am back
in the action rather than watching it.

the opening scene is an establishing shot just outside this school building,
but now there are a few people gathered in the grassy playing fields. they
seem to be waiting for something with an attitude of expectation. the
camera moves between them, probably a steadicam shot remarkable for its even
flow over uneven ground.
bruce stays behind, watching the television while i move into the scene with
the action.

i meet the master, evil villain from doctor who. it is roger delago, the
first actor to play the master. he greets me with his calculated voice and
looks at me with a secret knowledge of what is to come.
"you know to keep to the vital areas." i agree even though i am not
so certain what this actually means for us.

we start to walk over the fields. there is a young woman holding a plump
baby. i say nothing to her as we pass. soon we encounter a short young man
with gray streaks in his hair. he comes over to me and stands too close for
my comfort. he is insistent about something.

"i have been trained in the black arts." he tells me. "see? i can make do
with whatever comes my way but always, always i achieve whatever is
unexpected. nalla leyden makshu berrupt not te dingo."
these last words were high barbaric which i could almost understand, but it
has been a while since i had any reason to speak such. it certainly
testifies to his level of training to be so fluent in this jargon.

we are near the edge of the fields where the thin forest begins. in a
clearing just past the first trees there is a metal platform where the
master and i climb up and stand in the center. this is the portal which
will take us somewhere.

slowly there is a roaring from deeper in the woods. it is a mechanical
sound like a jet engine and soon a large military rocket comes streaking
directly overhead, flying low over the tree tops along a nearly horizontal
trajectory. it has a stout thick body with stubby wings that i can just see
as it flashes away overhead. i remember when we filmed this shot that there
was a rocket launch scheduled at the nearby air base and we took advantage
of it to get the next special effect.

smoke begins to roll out of the forest from where that rocket came.
just a little at first, but more and more bellows between the trees.
soon the metal platform and ourselves can no longer been seen by the camera.
once hidden in the rocket exhaust, we climb down from the platform and move
off camera, so when the smoke clears it seems like we have vanished. that
is how the portal is to be seen working.

after the smoke has cleared, there are many people, mostly technicians from
the air base who launched that rocket. they come out from the trees and
stand around congratulating each other for a job well done.

the young man with the gray streaks in his hair comes up to me and we start
to walk.

"you know to keep to the vital spots?" he asks me. i nod. this time i
understand that as a general principle we are to go toward whatever place is
most alive. in this case, in one direction the grass is greener and lush
while on either side it thins out to bare earth. keep to the vital region
and we will eventually get to where we are supposed to go. not as efficient
as the portal which would have taken us there instantly, but since we could
not get that effect to work, the barbaric young man and i will just have to
walk it, keeping to the vital.

=( i awake at 06:40. the wife, susan, in this dream is someone unknown to
me, not the speech therapist i knew at the school for retarded children
where i once worked. the school in this dream is also just suggestive of
the actual place. i have no knowledge of a place named bendix missouri.
bruce whitmarsh was a friend of mine from here in pensacola. he died of
cancer about six or seven years ago. the barbaric words mean nothing to me
but i think i have their sounds transcribed fairly close to what the young
man said. some of the syllables may be wrong, but the number of words he
said was about that length. keeping to the vital seems to be a general
axiom that sounds better than its utility would actually be. whether it
ever gets me to bendix so i can recover the mutated wife and daughter would
have been good to know. )=


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS

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The Dream Section Editor is on vacation this month. In place of the Dreams
Section, I'm including part 3 of a collection of computer dreams from "Gem".


09/07/2003)
I was making changes to a website. I kept submitting letters and something
else to get quotes on how much the changes were cost. I kept making changes
and sending it back for more quotes. (35 words)

09/08/2003)
This was a very restless dream. I was doing computer work and doing so
unsuccessfully and getting very frustrated. (19 words)

09/22/2003)
I was working at the computer making a form using Excel. It had something to
do with Lorna's community. (19 words)

10/06/2003)
I was doing some kind of editing online. (8 words)

10/24/2003)
I was at a hotel with Bill C. We were giving a presentation. When he first
started the program there were only three or four people there. We had the
tables set up in the U shape that we typically do. I was sitting at one of
the tables. There was a gentleman sitting next to me. He reminds me of the
guy who usually sat behind me at photography class. About one half hour into
the program I noticed some people standing outside the door so I went out
and told them to go on in and have a seat. Tons of people started coming. I
started asking them if they had trouble finding us or if they misunderstood
what time the program started. I'm pointing out empty seats to people. I
filled all the seats and there were still more people. Some were just going
in and getting some chairs from a different place in the room. It was a very
large meeting room and we were just at one end where we had set up our
tables. The rest of the room was set up as those there had been a meal
served before our program and they hadn't cleaned it up yet. Some people
were just grabbing chairs from there and dragging them over to where we were
and just sitting outside of the U, not at the tables. I went over and
started clearing off one of the table, putting the stuff onto another table.
Someone of them were six foot tables and some were very small square tables
with a single leg in the middle. I started to sit something on one of the
small square tables but decided it might get out of balance and this stuff
fall off. Some of the things were bowls about the size of punch bowls and
they had ice water in them all the way to the edge. I tried to sit two of
those on one of the small square tables, at opposing corners to balance them
but I was still afraid they would spill so I moved them to another table.
Then on this same table someone had left part of a sandwich from a fast food
place. I was trying to clean it up without actually touching the food. I
finally cleaned off one of these tables and turned it so it was parallel to
one of ours and put a couple of chairs there for more people. At one point I
went into another room that had computers in it. I was going to try to
quickly type up a form with three columns of blank lines. At the top of one
I was going to put Name. At the top of the next I was going to put Email. At
the top of the other I was going to put Fax. I knew Bill would want that, to
have people write down their information before they left. I was going to
make this form and then stand outside the door with this form on a clipboard
so people could sign it as they left. When I went into this other room with
the computers, someone had been messing with my computer. I couldn't figure
out how to reset to the way I had it set up so I could find my word
documents. There was a woman in that room working at a computer. Her
computer was fine so she was going to do it for me. But as she started our
program ended and even though I told her there was no need to do it now she
kept working on it. I think she might have actually been filling in these
people's names and emails and fax numbers but I don't know how she would
know this information.. Later I went to find Bill and I saw him sitting in
the back of this empty room in an upholstered armchair. He was looking very
ashen - not physically well. I expressed my concern. He said something about
not being able to discuss personal things with me - at my lead. There was
also something about small, black discs that looked like tiny LP's. And
there was something about kisses. [I ran out of tape and by the time I got
ready to record the rest of the dream I couldn't remember it.] (709 words)

11/10/2003)
Something to do with computer work and pulling up a lot of files that had
some kind of supporting data for the name file. That's the best way that I
can describe it. There were a lot of them. I don't know if it was me doing
the work or someone else. Going through them one at a time. At the end it
seemed to be meaningless. This was sketchy and hard to explain. (74 words)

12/05/2003)
[Refer to my personal journal on this one. I didn't recall any dreams
tonight, however before I went to sleep last night I journalled about
something I would like to receive insights about in my dreams. When I woke
up this morning I went straight to the computer and was there for three
hours writing about that very thing - all these insights just seemed to be
flowing from nowhere. Nowhere is likely dreams that I don't recall or
perhaps just my brain working it out while I slept. ] (0 words)

12/09/2003)
I was working with two people to create some kind of an Excel document in
the computer. I think it had three worksheets. All the data we were putting
in belonged to one person. The other person was giving us the guidelines -
what needed to be in, what categories, the maximum number of entries, etc. I
was trying to figure out how to take the data out of other documents and get
it into Excel, through importing, cut and paste or some other. There was
some confusion about what we were putting in it. There was confusion about
how many entries on one. One was a list of names and addresses. The first
time we did it, it didn't go in right - like in the correct column. The next
time it was either the wrong list or the wrong information. We got all that
figured out but saw there were too many entries and needed to cut it back. I
think we were going to do a mailing. The person who owned the data was
fretting because he didn't think we could cut it back as much as the other
person was saying that we needed to. We were going to. We went through and
starting deleting entries. (210 words)
12/15/2003)
I was trying to figure out how to create a pdf document using my Broderbund
software. (16 words)

12/17/2003)
I was working for a company other than CT. I was working at the computer,
using Publisher, creating some kind of booklet. There was a lot of
discussion about the overall look and was it the same general look as the
other company materials or should it have it's own look or just have some
tie in to the company such as the company logo. Someone had also created a
graphic. It wasn't created by a professional. We all really liked it and
were very impressed about how good it looked for not being done by a
professional. (98 words)

12/22/2003)
I met my future husband last night. His name is Sal. I had my laptop sitting
on my bedside table and it was connected to the internet. I started chatting
with him online, though I don't know who contacted who or how we found each
other. Online he called himself Sal CEO. Our first interactions were fun and
playful. Within a few hours he had arrived at my house to meet me. He is
fairly tall, has reddish brown short hair, wears glasses and medium build.
He is a very nice guy, and fun to be with. I was sharing a home with Dan and
Maureen from the sleep center. They were married and lived primarily on the
first floor of this home. Sal and I wanted some time alone to get to know
each other but he was very nice about the fact that Dan and Maureen were
there. They were each dealing with some kind of problem in their life, each
separately, and he was being very kind in allowing me to do what I needed to
do for them. We were both engaging in conversation with each of them about
whatever it was they were each dealing with. He noticed a bumper pool table
across the room and suggested we play. I told him I didn't know how and he
would have to teach me. I went over to the table and realized that there was
a piece missing or something and told him we couldn't play because of this.
He suggested another game that the four of us could play. We were preparing
to do that. I noticed how dirty the tile floor was. It was covered in black
footprints. I said something to Dan and Maureen about it, almost scoldingly
telling them that they could be a bit more conscientious about taking care
of my home since I had agreed to let them stay there temporarily. I lived
primarily upstairs while they were staying here, but shared some rooms of
this floor. That's why Sal and I were down there instead of going upstairs.
While we were getting ready to play this game Sal and I found ourselves
alone in a room for a few seconds and he gave me a quick kiss on the lips. I
could tell by the look in his eyes that he was going to do that before he
did. It was nice. It was especially nice because it affirmed to me that he
was enjoying being with me. (419 words)

12/23/2003)
I was trying to figure out some kind of computer problem at work. I was
going back and forth with someone about how to fix it or different possible
solutions. I don't know if we ended up getting it fixed or not. (42 words)

01/14/2004)
Matt and I were driving back to Phoenix from St. Joe. As we neared I-465,
nearer to the city, you could see the skyline. In the skyline there were two
very distinct buildings. One was directly in front of us. The other was off
a little bit to the left. They both had very large words on top of the
buildings. I could read them from there. We were talking about the
buildings, what they were, which one was tallest building in the city. I
decided that the one to the left was in my way, was blocking my vision while
driving so I reached up and bent it over, almost a U shape, to the ground.
That didn't break anything. Now Matt is a very young child and it's the
fourth of July. We're on our way to see the fireworks. My intention was to
find someplace close to home, on the way home, to just stop and watch the
fireworks and then go the rest of the way home. Matt was pouting because he
wanted to go over to the west side of town, to some place where I knew it
would be packed with people to watch fireworks. I had to call Dan for some
reason. I was trying to be very nice. I wasn't sure how he was going to be
with me on the phone after my latest emails when he got kind of miffed at
me. I was still being very nice. He asked me how I was and I said fine. I
told him Matt was pouting. Dan said something. I guess I didn't realize that
he wanted to talk to Matt. Then he said, "No. I'm not kidding. Put him on
the phone." I gave Matt the phone. Apparently Dan said something to him
about pouting. At this point we were laughing. We weren't in the car anymore
and there were a lot of people around. I was trying to explain to Matt that
it was going to be so crowded and uncomfortable and it would take us so long
to get out of there after the fireworks. I let Matt talk to Dan. Dan seemed
to make it a little better but not much. (373 words)

01/16/2004)
We were remodeling and/or redecorating living spaces for a number of
different people. I say we but I don't know who the people were that were
working with me on this. The living spaces we were working on must have been
fairly unusual. I don't remember what the houses looked like only the spaces
we were working with. We had designed cubes that were completely open on one
side. They were just slightly smaller than the size of the "room" we were
working on. These cubes could be lifted with a fork-lift and slid into the
"room." Rather than accessing through a door the owner would access through
the open wall of this cube. It appears that there is no other part of the
structure/home around the frame that we slide the cube into. All of the
cubes we were doing seemed to be home office spaces. We had designed them
all at one time. We designed several different looks based on certain needs.
Then we identified which look was best for each person. At one point in the
dream the content of the cubes was more like text on a page rather than a
room layout. We decided that one person would need several cubes because it
was simply way too much text for one page and that multiple cubes was not a
good option - maybe not an option at all. I came up with the idea of putting
the text onto computer files so the person would have easy access. I said
this would actually work much better for them than simply laying it out in
the cube anyway. This then freed up the cube for one of the room designs we
had done and were using for the other people. (294 words)

01/28/2004)
I was working for a company that was involved in some kind of public event.
After the event was over we were tearing down and cleaning up. I was paying
attention to how someone had run the electrical wiring, or maybe it was
related to telephones or computers. I was telling someone that I really
liked the way they had set that up - that it worked really well, it was
inconspicous, it was out of the way. As we were cleaning up somebody was
selling some things. I paid more than $1,000 for this telephone because I
knew that someone had just won more than 20 million dollars in the lottery
but they needed this telephone to be able to claim their winnings. I thought
that since their prize was more than 20 million dollars they would be
willing to pay a lot to get this phone that they need to claim the money.
After I bought it I knew I would be hearing from them soon about buying
phone. I was having trouble trying to decide what a fair price would be. It
certainly wasn't my intention to take advantage of them, knowing that they
had to have this phone to collect their prize. My intention was simply to
make a good investment and get a good return on my investment. I thought it
was fair for me to charge them more than $1,000 for the phone. (239 words)

02/03/2004)
I was working at the CT office. I had just come in for the day. I is typical
for me in waking life I asked Bill what his schedule was for the day and let
him know that I thought we needed some work time and some to talk to him
about somethings about me and CT. As the day progressed he seemed to be very
busy. Like going from one place to the next - went on an appointment, came
back, left for another appointment, etc. I had gone in Bill Cro's office a
couple of times and there was stuff everywhere, all over the table,
underneath the table. The rest of the time...taking things in there. Setting
them in there. I can't remember what some of them were. I went out. When I
came back I saw the office door, there was something like mosquito netting
hanging off the door. I went over and looked in and Bill was in there
meeting with the other two guys and hadn't waited for me. I was so upset. I
walked over and saw that Blair had ............as well. Then I really become
even more upset. Bill Cro and Blair got up and walked out. Evidently Bill
was not including them so they felt it was wasting their time. Bill C looked
up and realized what he was doing. He got up and came out of the office.
Bill Cro and Blair had issues about me not being there. I was now sitting at
the front desk and Bill C was talking to three people standing there. They
wanted to schedule their next meeting and Bill C said I could take care of
that. I was thinking that here he was treating me like a secretary again. I
went back into my office and was trying to clean some things up, return some
calls, etc. I wondered how Bill C could not recognize how well I'm doing and
see how easy it is to.... There was something all over the floor that I was
trying to clean up. I don't know what it was. There was a woman there and it
was her last day at work so there was a party or something. I was trying to
get something into her office and out of the way. It seems that there was an
open window between her office and the rest of the office. Her and I had a
very brief discussion. She asked me if I could find a file that I had asked
her to try to find earlier. I ran into a compute problem, something with the
printer. I was trying to cancel printing but it wouldn't stop. I was holding
it in the air. Dottie E came in and got the regular printer to stop but the
thing in my hand was still going. I asked her about getting it to stop and
she just walked out without answering me. I went back out into the office.
Bill C was there again and getting ready to leave. I said something to him
about meeting with him. He said, "Well, we have about 45 minutes before I
have to leave." I asked him if he was coming back and he said he hoped not
but he probably would. He didn't say anything but I could tell by the look
on his face that he realized I still wanted to talk to him. I think he was
trying to avoid it. I think I finally said something and he said we could do
something right now and that he thought we could get done. I was thinking
that we didn't have that much time, he's in a rush, he doesn't want to have
the conversation, do I really want to have it now in these circumstances or
do I want to let it go again and let it keep eating at me? (654 words)

02/29/2004)
The dream was about programming my car and maybe other cars to help us get
where we want to go the best or most effective way. The images of the dream
though were those of creating a document in MS Publisher where you can flow
text from one page to the next within text boxes. When I programmed the car
it affected how something flowed from page to page. There was a sense of
having the dream again when I went back to sleep because I wasn't successful
the first time. I was trying again to successfully program my car so then we
could use that as a guide to help other people program their cars
successfully. (117 words)

03/01/2004)
I seem to be at PLU though it doesn't look like PLU does in waking life. I
am with Matt and Chris H. There is a row of swings. We are all talking and
swinging. I am playing around and I find that as I swing I am able to make
the whole frame of the swing jump forward or backward. I can make it jump
forward a couple of steps. The swings are very close to where the football
team is practicing. I don't know if I am still on the swing or...something
related to the football team...teasing or something. One time when I do it I
realize that I've maybe gone to far or gotten too close or something. I turn
around and start to run away. They decide to run after me and tackle me. A
bunch of them do and they land on top of me. There is something about being
in one of the buildings and something flying around in the building. A bug
or a bird maybe...but it's too big to be a bug and I'm pretty sure that it's
not a bird. There's also something about me working on a computer document.
There is a whole list of categories or maybe a list of titles or groups of
words. I'm going in and looking at changing groups of words and I'm going in
and changing the description of that title or group of words. (241 words)

03/02/2004)
In this dream I was trying to get some documents to print properly. I spent
more than an hour trying to figure that out. I woke up from the dream at 4am
and then went back to sleep, the dream continued. I woke up from the dream
again at 5am and still had not been successful getting the documents to
print. There aren't a lot of images and so not much to record. No
characters. Don't really see a setting. I see the settings on the printer
and I see the copies coming out wrong. (95 words)

03/04/2004)
There was a sense that I was...the imagery that I remember is that I was at
a computer working on an Excel sheet. There was a list of things that at one
point I realized that there were one or two things that I needed to always
have at the beginning of the list because they somehow impacted the outcome
of.... I think maybe it was a task list. I needed to have these one or two
things always at the top of the list in order to get the other things done.
These one or two things were, one or the other of them were always on the
list. This list was only for one person and yet there is a sense that is was
for me and not for me. (132 words)

03/06/2004)
I had another dream that was about a TV show. The imagery was all about a
computer software program. (19 words)

03/08/2004)
I had a computer document that Bev and Barb both wanted a copy of. When I
told them it was created in Publisher Bev said that she no longer had
Publisher software on her computer and she made some kind of comment about
what a pain that is and that it had something to do with hospital budget I
think. Barb said she had Publisher. I asked her what version it was and it
was a very old version like 1990. I don't even think there was a 1990
version of Publisher, or even of Windows. But that's what she said. I said,
"Oh. Well then you won't be able to open it because an old version of
Publisher can't open a document that was created in a newer version unless
both versions are 2002 or newer. Then John was going to do some work on my
computer. I had a new hard drive to install and something else but I don't
what it was. It was something that I have never installed before. So he was
working on my computer and he was working on some other stuff too. He got
ready to quit and he hadn't installed this one thing that was most important
yet. He said something about not getting it done so I started asking him if
it was something I could install myself or asking him how to install it
myself. Then I think Bev said something to him so he decided to go ahead and
take the time to install it himself. I felt kind of bad about it but it
turned out that it only took a few minutes to do. (278 words)
03/13/2004)



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