w o r k s & d a y s * * this is the place where time reverses

I woke up from a dream and suddenly realized that I'd been doing heroin -- not just for the last day, but for the last six months -- but I couldn't remember any of it. I guess I wasn't lying about it because there was enough evidence around me and from my friends, that I could figure it out. I was so much more than upset, I was completely immobile with grief. I couldn't believe it had happened again. It seemed to go on for hours. Hours of pure misery, self-hatred, sickness. It took me forever to wake up completely. When I finally realized it wasn't real I actually started laughing, lying in bed. Then it started snowing (this was yesterday morning).

I have had an infinite number of heroin dreams over the years, but they all involve trying to find it, trying to do it, but never actually getting it in my arm -- or even if I do, I can never, ever feel it. I haven't had one of those since I was in Chicago.

But this dream was new -- this time the entire dream occurred *after* I did heroin, not before.

I think the memory loss I had in the first part of the dream was a mechanism of the dream to make it plausible that I had been doing it for six months prior to the dream. Like when you see someone in a dream that you know is your boyfriend, even if it isn't in real life -- a dream memory. Maybe it was too hard for my brain to fabricate six months of "dream memories", so instead I had the impression that I had forgotten all of it. I have never felt such relief upon waking up from a dream, ever.

I have had a reoccurring dream a few times: I dream that I have children, which I have never dreamed of before. In the first one I was in Singapore, at a mall with my two blonde toddlers. I was carrying the younger one. Their names were Noah and Alex, boys -- but sometime during the dream I forgot which was which, then I started to forget their middle names, then their first names, and eventually I had no idea who they were.

Here's another weird one I was telling Donna about:

me: i couldn't sleep last night and i feel like shit.. i had another dream about kids. i was running away from someone, down 4 flights of stairs onto a beach, then i grabbed these 3 kids, ages 1-3, and ran away.. i almost fell in the ocean. but i disappeared in a crowd. then suddenly i had the perspective of the person i'd just left, watching me leave. i think i tried to chase myself... but i couldn't. the second person was a man and he was blonde. as the man, i ran back up the stairs and i don't remember after that. the girl (me) was really pretty and wearing this old fashioned grey dress. i wonder what's with all the blondes and kids and stuff. seems pretty obvious.

DAB: like, guilt over leaving thailand/brian or guilt over abortions or both...

me: i don't know if it's guilt, maybe just preoccupation. and i was capable of carrying 3 toddlers at once. that's what the guy was thinking when she ran away, "how can she carry so much?"

DAB: "how can she carry so much" seems like pretty potent symbolism.

me: i think he thought the kids would slow her down and he could catch her. but she was still running.

DAB: i wonder if the kids have other meanings... are there three things you are now free to pursue? i think that's a really good dream, even though it sounds unpleasant. seems pretty ripe with symbols.

me: i remember the perspective shifted and i was watching "myself" run backwards down the beach, and this wave came and washed up around my ankles and i almost fell in, and then i started running the other way, holding the three kids, up to the boardwalk or something. i couldn't see the wave because i was still facing the guy.

DAB: what's cool is that ambiguity you're talking about, because he probably represented more than brian, maybe even contradictory things. he could have even represented drugs. something else that prevents you from following your dreams. the perspective shift probably means something -- maybe many things.

me: well i guess it's good that i got away, if that means anything. unless the "brian" character is something positive! obviously both he and the ocean were things i wanted to get away from.

DAB: maybe the ocean is just thailand... tropical hell.

me: oh, yeah. ick.

me: you know, i can't even read about buddhism anymore. or anything remotely foreign.

DAB: wow, really? even zen?

me: i was looking for quotes in "zen mind beginner's mind" the other day, and even quotes i really liked, that were underlined, i just didn't want to read them. and i keep being attracted to the buddhism section at bookstores, because usually when my life is crazy i like to read buddhism, but i just can't do it. it's not buddhism, it's the asian culture, i have bad associations.

DAB: wow. can you put any of the associations into words?

me: um, no, i think it's trying to put myself in a foreign culture, because it's impossible. when you're reading zen, it's very foreign, but i used to like that, because it was a fresh perspective. it's so open, really, and nothing like thai culture at all, so i don't get it. i think eventually i will be more open to non-american things. i can't even think about traveling anywhere.