Dreams
at a vacation house with my dad and others, ocean right outside, in the backyard. noticed dolphins swimming alongside small boat, || to shore with boat closer to shore. wanted small child in house to see (don't know who the child was any more), tried to take to window / porch. dolphins stopped following boat, turned to face shore, were now huge sea mammals (manatees? sea lions?), with killer whale color pattern but dolphin gray instead of orca black. 2 of them faced shore, were size of whales, almost whole bodies out of the water, as if riding waves in or lying on iceberg. then there were 5 then more. alerted others in house to look, was discomfited by their size and odd behavior - almost like they were planning to charge (ref: last unicorn mutiny)
chg scene to children's museum / vast playspace type of setting, elliot was there w/ caregiver (not his r/l mom). his stuffed animal was tossed up high and he ran under it and caught it and i went over to hug him and congratulate him but it was a different child who'd caught it. i immediately looked up for elliot, anxious because i know he gets sad and hurt when something he thinks is his or should be for him is done or taken by someone else and i didn't want to see the hurt and was concerned my congratulations would add insult to injury. found him and he was sad, and i said "wasn't that a great catch, elliot?" hoping to distract him from his loss and direct his energy out, and "trick" him into being happy by being happy for someone else or something outside of him.
chg scene to skiing / snowboarding obstacle course / track type thing like water slide structure, w/ more than 1 way down but clear paths to take for the challenge and/or fun. adam was on skis, i was on snowboard. i got up to "launch" position and hesitated. as in street traffic (one in particular this morning, gunned past a slow SUV on 40th in school zone before bridge in single lane), others waited very briefly, then started passing me and shooting expertly down the course. some were going down between the 2 courses, 1 man on a board zipped back and forth on heel edge across the gradual slope near the bottom (of the very short hill, which was maybe only the top or even middle of a mountain, like a ski slope) like frictionless marble or bb bouncing between walls, making zig-zag track w/ sharp direction reverse corners, not curves. adam came up behind me and we started going down neither course, i tried to do 1 direction change or heel-toe (or vice versa, i don't remember) change and it went smoothly but not well, that is it was technically correct but lacked conviction, style, attitude and enthusiasm, so i lost interest in the dream..
next dream i can't remember coherently but we were kids with brown skin swimming in an amazon-like river (but not afraid of being eaten or polluted - like a sterile US version of the amazon, with no other life that might threaten ours or be distasteful - or else we were kids and just didn't care or didn't think about such things). for some reason 2 of the kids needed to "fly" or float to a location in the air, they joined their limbs, spread out and formed an inner-tube type shape with their bodies / limbs and then blew into their thumbs (like a cartoon character) and their bodies filled with air and they floated up. a little later, we all were floating or flying, maybe not together and maybe not using the same method. we floated up to a space ship type thing, with a small spirited away spider master kind of guy (hunchy, glasses, big nose, mostly bald, black suit) in a window near us reading off a serial or evidence number from a tiny girls' bike with a basket, as i knew had happened because i'd either read about this happening or been informed that it had or heard it in a story. then (maybe some stuff i forgot happened in between) we were on the space ship, wearing plastic rain coats and asking for clothes cuz we didn't have any, and i wasn't a small brown child but a taller, thin white girl. i felt like i was in my 12 year old body - long thin legs, no body fat, nearly ready to become a woman but having no idea what that meant, just feeling bigger, more attention-worthy, prettier, elegant, a little obscene and/or tantalizing but not dirty or guilty
maybe this is why i enjoy dreaming so much, even when it's weird, incoherent, or nightmarish - because it's generally pervaded by an un-self-consciousness that i haven't since growing up felt or embodied like i did as a child. i used to know i was utterly capable, and feel invincible. more than that, i used to feel transparent and insubstantial, like my body wasn't a thing that contained or surrounded me.. i didn't think of my body as a visual presentation to other people, or a part of me vulnerable to intentional abuse by myself or others, or even as a part of me at all.. it was more like a circumstance and a tool - a thing that was related to me like it now only is in dreams. it wasn't ME, it wasn't even part of me - i was something other than the body with which my consciousness happened to be connected. i didn't know at the time that i thought or felt these things, but the lack of concern for body image, self-protection, germs, dirt and sweat, weather and temperature and being seen naked or moving or feeling or being that i remember indicate it. i was also free from worrying about the potential social effects - the opinions others might form of me and/or the way they might treat me because - of body language, posture, dress, self-absorption, expressed opinions, being right, being smart, being feminine, being tomboyish, having body hair or small breasts or otherwise not fitting some projected physical ideal, having fun, experiencing pleasure, loving pleasure, winning, being angry, expressing pain or displeasure.. in dreams i never worry about shit like that. and it's more like watching a movie or telling myself a story - i never think about what i should do or what its effects might be - i just act and react, like every other participant in the story (although, interestingly, there are usually not many reactions on the part of others to things i say or do)