Carabas

Speaking with Jareth, I end a sentence with "god!" A general exclamation, but that's not how he takes it. He replies, entirely serious, "Don't call me that." I didn't, but good to know your arrogance has some limits.

I'm singing the title role of Don Giovanni, wearing a mask that covers my entire face, even my mouth. Reminds me of the McKittrick. While on stage, I switch places with someone else, identically dressed.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm swimming in a pool with a woman who's offered to grant me a wish. To do so, she tells me I must go to Thailand and walk into the jungle in a certain place until I reach an abandoned building. Here, I must draw one of two specific symbols in the dirt. It doesn't matter which one I choose, what matters is the reasoning behind my choice. Whichever I choose, she'll draw the other. She'll stand at my back, using those two symbols in some way, during which time I must not turn to look at her or communicate with her in any way. Success depends on her understanding why I made the choice I did.

A young man runs out of a house, pursued by several women wearing black and red. Shortly afterward, inside that building, I come across three young men, and I ask, "Which one of you sprinted out of here looking like Orpheus with the Bacchae on his heels?"

I'm looking over some photos of the new cast at the McKittrick. (Side note - last time I dreamed of Orpheus, he was in the McKittrick-as-underworld.) A new storyline has been added in. The photo I'm looking at now shows the woman at the center of that new storyline, sitting on a stool at a diner counter - sad expression, short wavy blonde wig, purple dress, purple purse on the counter. The character's female but always played by a male actor. In the background behind her, there's a man in a suit slouched in one of the booths, watching her. He's a sort of sycophant character, sleazy, untrustworthy, but entirely loyal to her in his own way.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

Edwardian England, there's a heavyset, motherly woman gently pushing a sick young woman back down into her bed, over the young woman's protests - she's feeling much better but she's having a hard time thinking straight enough to make herself understood. At this point she's just saying, "No, no." The light from the window is hurting her head, it's much too bright. I'm sympathetic about that, but mostly I'm relieved to be able to see her like this at all, relieved that she's all right and that the connection that lets us see what the other's doing is now working. I haven't seen her in some time.

I see images representing all the other people I have those connections with, with an image representing this woman now added to the end of the line. There are maybe two dozen images here, older connections as I look back farther. The most recent image, aside from that Edwardian scene, represents someone I just saw recently in person, pleasant feelings. As I look farther back, there's one image that instantly brings up feelings of irritation - we don't keep in touch, we've never been able to understand each other, and just this brief visual reminder of her brings up that old frustration. There's a few places where an image should be there but isn't - the woman whose death I dreamed of recently, the roses that turned to ash. And at the other end of the line, the very first two: the first, a woman with a long red braid, a sword in her hand, standing in a snow-covered forest. The second, a more symbolic image - a variety of colorful butterflies hanging in the air against a dark background, two trees just barely visible in the darkness. And a little bit apart from the last of those images, a simple black image to represent me.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm lying on my back in a field hospital in 20th century China. There's a young woman treating me, wearing a uniform, with her hair tied up in two braids. I've been enjoying speaking with her. I haven't been enjoying whatever's in that IV. I'm thinking about the woman mentioned in that previous scene, with the roses turning to ash.

Still in China, I'm in a small boat that a middle-aged man is steering by pole. I've hired him to take me and an old woman back to her hometown, though it's been flooded and abandoned for a very long time. The old woman doesn't live in the present anymore. Her hometown is the place where I last saw that woman with the roses, though that was a long time ago and I don't know if I'll be able to find anything useful there. I haven't been back to this part of the world since before this area was flooded. I focus on the ruins of a building I recognize, as the boat passes underneath.

I'm walking in the garden, mentally composing a letter. When I'm ready to start putting it down, I go to where I've left my portable writing desk. There are a few bees hovering around it, interested in the vine I left it under. I'm thinking about moving it somewhere I won't disturb the bees, but then I see an envelope that's been left on top of it.

The letter inside is written in classical Chinese. I have no difficulty understanding it, but rather than actually reading the letter, I'm thinking about the woman who sent it - even without seeing her name, there's only one person who writes to me in this language. I'm seeing a mental image of the two of us walking through a rough stone tunnel next to water, with light reflecting off the water, rippling patterns reflected on our faces.

That was a memory, but the next image I see is the present, through her eyes, something that can sometimes happen when I'm thinking about her. She's looking at a painting of a woman I think of as a saint, with an image of a dragon behind her; then her vision moves up to the ceiling, as if she's falling back. I see an image of a pile of roses turning to ash, and my connection to her is gone - not just this vision, but the connection of our blood is gone. She's dead.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

There's a man who's been sent back in time, and now several other people who've gone back to rescue him. He'd been involved with the woman leading the rescue team. They've just met up now, and very nearly attacked each other - both of them sneaking around a fortress, trying to avoid being seen. Having sorted it out, it seems he's working together on a mission with a woman from this era, and fallen in love, and has no interest in going back to his original time period. He's just broken her out of a cell in this fortress. The woman who came back to rescue him is thinking it was foolish to chase his spirit into the past when she had his (something) in the present.

The scene transitions to a modern-day park; that man was brought back to the present against his wishes, but so was that woman from the past. They're spending time in the park with their infant son, distracted and unhappy.

My attention shifts to other people in the park, a group discussing magic, specifically one man mentioning a "listen and learn" spell with leaves, as a second step for those just starting to work with trees. He describes trees in general as "a bit froggy, though."

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

A private performance of a show based on Frankenstein. The 'bride' character speaks beautifully; the 'creation' character is silent, and his hands are bent backwards at the wrist as if they've been broken. When he'd been alive, he'd been the doctor's student or lover or something close.