Blue_Opossum

Morning of May 24, 1970. Sunday.

Dream #: 1,252-01. Reading time (optimized): 2 min. Readability score: 63.



At about two o'clock in the morning on May 24, 1970, I enter the dream state in passive semi-lucidity. I watch the bright and colorful opening credits for the animated musical “Gay Purr-ee” (1962). It seems to be playing in a peaceful private place within my mind rather than on television or in a movie theater. So far, I am aware that I am in my bed (Cubitis house).

Over time, I decide it will become the beginning of a long dream that has the essence of a movie. I soon see starring “Toby T_____,” “Brenda W_____,” and my name, integrated with various panels of different visuals (in the same style as the opening of “Gay Purr-ee” and with similar music). My father’s role displays as the “King of the Alligators.” (In real life, my father often sang Smiley Burnette’s “Don Juan of Sevillio,” which had the line “I’m known as the king of the matadors.” In a later version of this dream over a year later, his dream role was “The Alligator King;” an influence from a “Sesame Street” short.)

I become aware of a recurring dream state induction process (which began in early childhood) - the presence of a water body. I slowly lose my semi-lucidity, but not my conscious self’s identity. I am in a canoe with Brenda (schoolmate, neighbor, and friend) and Toby (schoolmate and friend). The three of us are on a journey that seems to be occurring at night. We are traveling in a canoe on Peace River (Lettuce Lake area). The scene is peaceful and enjoyable, but I absentmindedly focus on my dream becoming dramatic, even thrilling.

A man on the riverbank commands three alligators to attack our canoe. (It is my father acting in this imaginary role, though I am not wholly lucid in this version of my dream even though I “wrote the script” for this scene, not because of any associations with my father being perceived as such, even metaphorically, but to fill the imaginary role with a familiar character as with a school play.) He is wearing a cape made of alligator hide. (I am vaguely aware of the cypress knee lamps he used to make in real life when we lived in Fort Ogden. The clothing imagery was an influence from characters in Gold Key’s “Turok Son of Stone” comic book.)

As we watch, the alligators approach and flip our canoe. That triggers a vestibular correlation event, where I fly through the air and land in a tree about ten feet from the ground on the opposite side of the river as the alligator king. Toby is clutching to the trunk of a nearby tree. At first, I view this event as comedic. However, I notice that Brenda is being pulled (on her back) over the surface of the water by an alligator.

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I end part one here. Part two continues with additional important scenes and segments from other dream versions with the same foundation, which occurred over about two years (1969-1971).

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