I see shapes
Jan. 13th, 2005 11:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j4There has been an organisational shakeup in the Ministry of Dreams; they are finally sending me something better with which to beguile my sleeping hours. Last night I dreamed there was a REAL LIVE BADGER in our garden. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sion_a was persuading it not to dig up the only tree in the garden, a tiny and neatly-shaped tree in the middle of a vast well-kept lawn; he had made it dig up the tree again and mark it with a scent that told badgers not to dig there. As the badger performed this obviously unwelcome task it was wailing in a most distressed way, but I stroked it a lot and it calmed down. At first I was being very careful to stroke it with my sleeve tucked over my hand so that I could not catch any diseases from it, but soon I decided that I wanted to stroke it properly. Its fur was soft and warm. I would be happy for more of my dreams to involve the comforting of badgers.
The night before, I dreamed about my boss. In the dream, I was supposed to be going on some kind of road-trip with her, and we were still at the stage of packing my car with all the things we needed. Throughout our preparations for the trip she was being very affectionate, we were hugging frequently and protractedly, and I was very excited -- about both the journey ahead and the way she was acting towards me -- but not aroused; just delighted and optimistic. Perhaps the excitement held the potential to be sexual, but in the dream it was bright and uncomplicated. I was taller than her, in the dream, and she rested her head against my chest as I held her. In real life I have never been able to hold anybody like that. At five feet and one-and-a-bit inches I am moderately unlikely to find a lover shorter than myself; even most women are taller than me.
It feels somehow fraudulent describing the emotions of dreams, because of my nagging suspicion that I may be merely projecting waking feelings onto them after the fact. However, when I wake up, while the dream is still fresh in my mind, the emotional afterimages seem very strong; so if I am adding to them rather than remembering them, I am doing it subconsciously and instantaneously on waking. Besides, what does it mean to 'actually' experience an emotion in a dream? Would my body register the same physiological changes in the dream as it would if I experienced that emotion while awake? Is that what defines an emotion? Is there any art to find the mind's construction in the body? It's my body, and I don't mind.
But a dream of fair woman has turned my mind to female matter. I think of the first woman I kissed; I could not call her face to mind in any detail (I remember pre-Raphaelite ringlets and a tender mouth) but I remember the feeling of wonder and delight. The sensation was sweet, but it was the symmetry that held me spellbound: we were mirror-images, for that moment reflecting only one another, sealed in a separate world. With a man I am a space for him to fit into; with a woman I am a positive form, my curves and lines in counterpoint to hers. With a man I have a sense that together we have created a single indivisible whole, greater than the sum of its parts; with a woman, a sense that we are two, divided yet multiplied like the images in opposite mirrors, meeting in the middle of infinity. Neither is a lesser or greater harmony than the other.
It can be hard to believe in anything when all I see is patterns.
sion_a was persuading it not to dig up the only tree in the garden, a tiny and neatly-shaped tree in the middle of a vast well-kept lawn; he had made it dig up the tree again and mark it with a scent that told badgers not to dig there. As the badger performed this obviously unwelcome task it was wailing in a most distressed way, but I stroked it a lot and it calmed down. At first I was being very careful to stroke it with my sleeve tucked over my hand so that I could not catch any diseases from it, but soon I decided that I wanted to stroke it properly. Its fur was soft and warm. I would be happy for more of my dreams to involve the comforting of badgers.The night before, I dreamed about my boss. In the dream, I was supposed to be going on some kind of road-trip with her, and we were still at the stage of packing my car with all the things we needed. Throughout our preparations for the trip she was being very affectionate, we were hugging frequently and protractedly, and I was very excited -- about both the journey ahead and the way she was acting towards me -- but not aroused; just delighted and optimistic. Perhaps the excitement held the potential to be sexual, but in the dream it was bright and uncomplicated. I was taller than her, in the dream, and she rested her head against my chest as I held her. In real life I have never been able to hold anybody like that. At five feet and one-and-a-bit inches I am moderately unlikely to find a lover shorter than myself; even most women are taller than me.
It feels somehow fraudulent describing the emotions of dreams, because of my nagging suspicion that I may be merely projecting waking feelings onto them after the fact. However, when I wake up, while the dream is still fresh in my mind, the emotional afterimages seem very strong; so if I am adding to them rather than remembering them, I am doing it subconsciously and instantaneously on waking. Besides, what does it mean to 'actually' experience an emotion in a dream? Would my body register the same physiological changes in the dream as it would if I experienced that emotion while awake? Is that what defines an emotion? Is there any art to find the mind's construction in the body? It's my body, and I don't mind.
But a dream of fair woman has turned my mind to female matter. I think of the first woman I kissed; I could not call her face to mind in any detail (I remember pre-Raphaelite ringlets and a tender mouth) but I remember the feeling of wonder and delight. The sensation was sweet, but it was the symmetry that held me spellbound: we were mirror-images, for that moment reflecting only one another, sealed in a separate world. With a man I am a space for him to fit into; with a woman I am a positive form, my curves and lines in counterpoint to hers. With a man I have a sense that together we have created a single indivisible whole, greater than the sum of its parts; with a woman, a sense that we are two, divided yet multiplied like the images in opposite mirrors, meeting in the middle of infinity. Neither is a lesser or greater harmony than the other.
It can be hard to believe in anything when all I see is patterns.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-01-13 12:53 pm (UTC)That's heartwarming to read.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-13 01:08 pm (UTC)But only when you argue ?
Date: 2005-01-13 01:19 pm (UTC)Am I the only person who finds it immensely entertaining to travel on escalators with other people ? The person who was previously slightly taller than you steps on ahead to the escalator, and - as if by magic - slowly shrinks to a huggable head-on-chest level. Or, if you're lucky, you can leap a couple of steps ahead and bite your companion's knees.
Hmm. Maybe it is just me.
Re: But only when you argue ?
Date: 2005-01-13 02:21 pm (UTC)I'm 5'10" and my DH is 5'4", so about the only time we get a "proper" cuddle is on the stairs or on an escalator :-)
Re: But only when you argue ?
Date: 2005-01-13 03:00 pm (UTC)Re: But only when you argue ?
Date: 2005-01-13 03:25 pm (UTC)Re: But only when you argue ?
Date: 2005-01-13 03:27 pm (UTC)Besides, there's barely time to break the skin on a normal-length escalator.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-13 04:07 pm (UTC)Down the escalator we go together
Date: 2005-01-13 04:43 pm (UTC)(Okay, I suppose I hear you when you yelp. Not that it makes me stop.)
Re: Down the escalator we go together
Date: 2005-01-14 12:35 am (UTC)Angel: Islington
Angel: Vampire
(have I missed any?).
Re: But only when you argue ?
Date: 2005-01-13 04:12 pm (UTC)Having my neck judiciously bitten is sufficiently Fun that I'd conceivably be in danger of tripping over the end of the escalator, which counts as very firmly Not Fun.
Re: But only when you argue ?
Date: 2005-01-14 04:48 pm (UTC)Re: But only when you argue ?
Date: 2005-01-16 03:43 pm (UTC)Patterns in the rain..
Date: 2005-01-13 02:00 pm (UTC)Believe in the patterns.
Life is a process of making sense of the patterns we find.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-14 01:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-14 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-14 04:00 pm (UTC)(Is that "interesting discussion" in the same sense as "interesting times"?)
arron shutt
Date: 2008-06-24 12:46 am (UTC)