Lessons with Hannibal Lecter.
This could all just boil down to my watching WAY too many Lecter movies, but if nothing else is possibly a morbidly entertaining (and at times laughably melodramatic) read. XD It's unusual enough for me to wonder about because 1) real people or celebrities rarely make appearances in my dreams and 2) I had very little control over this one, which is odd for me.
* - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - *
The dream begins in a warmly lit, close room with just a table/bed, Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins version) and I. On the table, lying on his back and loosely wrapped in warm white cloth, is a naked young man with the appearance of Gaspard Ulliel. I feel that he is not alive - just a body or an object. However, he is warm and pliable just as a living body. The assumption, though, is that he is a dead thing, inconsequential but lovely. I sit on the table near his feet, Hannibal stands near the head.
Hannibal is teaching me something, and the boy on the table is an instrument of the learning. I can't clearly remember the lesson, though it was sensual or deviant or both, but profound to me. Something to do with how to kill, or how to do more than kill.
Hannibal leans over the boy and sinks his teeth into his long, exposed throat. This I watched again and again and again, and in slow motion. The skin breaking, the dark blood pouring out. There is no reaction from the boy - his lips are parted, eyes closed, unaware. (The repetition can possibly be attributed to partial lucidity (?), since I often replay scenes I like in my regular dreaming)
As the arcane lessons progress, though, the boy begins to show signs of life, waking up little by little with every touch. He'll brush my wrist with his fingers, make eye contact, smile twinklingly at me. His face is so bright. At first, I am offended. I ask Hannibal "Why is he moving??! He's supposed to be [dead/paralyzed/an object]!!" Hannibal has no response, just a dangerous smile, and he continues the lessons. I'm outraged at the boy's audacity. Outraged and .................... utterly charmed. There's an intense connection between us that's almost palatable. It grows. Every response, every small movement between us devastates me. I cannot get enough of looking at him. He lets us do anything to him, and is completely compliant, and not unhappy. As if he chooses to be, but it doesn't make him powerless.
In the next scene, I am a bit younger. I think I'm traveling with Lecter, and we are in a cold and somewhat barren place. I'm wearing a little hooded parka and carrying a sketchbook and pencils. The lessons are continuing, but the boy, the teaching instrument, has been set aside for now, but is still with us and never far from my thoughts. Between Hannibal and I there is a delicious tension - I think he will kill me. I must be clever, but he is so much cleverer. I wonder if I can charm him and survive.
I am trying to draw the boy, his beautiful face. Hannibal sees what I'm doing and tells me something about an artist being worthless if they cannot replicate beauty perfectly. I think he will kill me if my drawing of the boy is not flawless. I think Hannibal loves the boy, too, in a way. He appreciates his beauty, but he doesn't think of him as more than an object, as I have come to.
I struggle with the drawing.
Inevitably, Hannibal discovers that I love the boy. That I love him more than I love Hannibal. So, he kills him as I watch. They are some distance away from me when it happens. The boy stands against a wall, looking at me, a soft smile on his face as Hannibal lifts a gun to his head. I think to myself, he lets us do anything to him. Then blood pours from his head, down his neck, to the ground. I don't believe it's happened, that he's really dead. I think I'm screaming.
The next section of the dream is a little unclear, but I think it was related. Somehow I know he's still alive, but somewhere beyond where I can reach him. A wise old lady I know in real life gives me these tiny squares of paper than can be used to open doors to other places. They are used by holding them out in front of you at about chest level, and through power of will or a special state of mind you cause them to float there, and then they burst into a shower of light that becomes the passage. My paper keeps falling. I try many ways, in many places. I'm still trying when the dream ends.
* - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - *
And that is the sorry end of my atypically melodramatic and not-so-atypically bloodthirsty dream. XD
Possibly relevant details:
~I'm 23, female, an art student, ecstatically single, allergic to traditional romantic gestures and hallmark relationships, have one younger brother, my father died when I was 5, my academic career is sordid at best, and I have lifelong love/hate relationship with Death.
~I've admittedly admired Lecter since around the age of 8, though I don't consider myself a hardcore fan. It may sound unwise, but I trust him. XD It doesn't surprise me that he showed up as a mentor figure. (Oh, and I'm not of the group of kiddies who chooses to fanworship villains just because they're trying to shock society.)
~I recently watched Hannibal Rising and was struck by Gaspard Ulliel's physical resemblance to a boy who is, for lack of a better expression, like a male version of myself and therefore utterly unobtainable, though I would rather die than want him anyway.
