Since I started taking the estrogen supplement, I seem to have been having some vivid or striking dreams. Maybe the dreams are no more plentiful or compelling than normal, perhaps I am just recalling them more often or in greater detail. Sometimes a particular dream will tend to stand out in memory as especially archetypal or symbolic. I had one such dream last night, awaking at 1:30 am and writing down the details so that I could give a fuller typewritten account today.
This was either a separate dream, or maybe it was a scene within a larger dream, which involved my friend and musical colleague Patrick. In real life, Patrick has a solo music project in a dark ambient, neofolk, post-industrial vein, dealing with themes that can be variously described as occult, pagan, and philosophic in a rather Nietzschean sense (I believe he draws some of his ideas from a study and practice of Gurdjieff's Fourth Way techniques). There are elements in his lyrical themes that one could further describe as militarist or crypto-fascist. I supply this as background info, so that his role in the dream might be better understood.
The scene I will describe concerns a life-size tableau that reminded me of one of those alchemical drawings of a hermaphroditic being, depicted as a sort of 'Siamese twins' figure, laterally divided with a female human to one side and a male opposite. Their faces point in opposing directions, Janus-like. The important difference between the familiar alchemical image and its appearance in my dream is that in the dream the figure is composed of two female parts, suggesting a more lesbian orientation than a hermaphroditic character. This tableau is laying horizontally on a table or platform, and the bodies are very lifelike, looking like scientific anatomical models, but about 3/4 scale to an adult female body.The two female halves are linked by a very large heart which has been cut open like an anatomical model so that the interior is revealed. The size of the heart is about 16" in height and width, covering most of the chest of the two figures which are joined at the hip and abdomen. I am watching and studying this figure closely, with heightened interest. The operation begins. A male hand, which I understand to be the hand of Patrick, reaches over the tableau with a thin ceremonial dagger (my impression of the instrument is that it is of Martial significance and origin) and pierces the heart through. Then, in withdrawing the dagger, the surgeon (or priest, magus or assailant) directs the blade in such a fashion as to slice a long notch in the wall of the heart, as if slicing an earlobe. I am wincing in pain as this maneuver is performed. The pain is sharp and intense. And it occurs to me now that I seldom recall feeling such a sensation in dreams as physical pain in the skin or tissue (most of the sensory data I receive in dreams is visual or aural, not tactile). But the way the dagger slices through the heart also reminds me of the way Roman Polanski's stiletto slit Jack Nicholson's nostril in Chinatown.
That was the dream...
This was either a separate dream, or maybe it was a scene within a larger dream, which involved my friend and musical colleague Patrick. In real life, Patrick has a solo music project in a dark ambient, neofolk, post-industrial vein, dealing with themes that can be variously described as occult, pagan, and philosophic in a rather Nietzschean sense (I believe he draws some of his ideas from a study and practice of Gurdjieff's Fourth Way techniques). There are elements in his lyrical themes that one could further describe as militarist or crypto-fascist. I supply this as background info, so that his role in the dream might be better understood.
The scene I will describe concerns a life-size tableau that reminded me of one of those alchemical drawings of a hermaphroditic being, depicted as a sort of 'Siamese twins' figure, laterally divided with a female human to one side and a male opposite. Their faces point in opposing directions, Janus-like. The important difference between the familiar alchemical image and its appearance in my dream is that in the dream the figure is composed of two female parts, suggesting a more lesbian orientation than a hermaphroditic character. This tableau is laying horizontally on a table or platform, and the bodies are very lifelike, looking like scientific anatomical models, but about 3/4 scale to an adult female body.The two female halves are linked by a very large heart which has been cut open like an anatomical model so that the interior is revealed. The size of the heart is about 16" in height and width, covering most of the chest of the two figures which are joined at the hip and abdomen. I am watching and studying this figure closely, with heightened interest. The operation begins. A male hand, which I understand to be the hand of Patrick, reaches over the tableau with a thin ceremonial dagger (my impression of the instrument is that it is of Martial significance and origin) and pierces the heart through. Then, in withdrawing the dagger, the surgeon (or priest, magus or assailant) directs the blade in such a fashion as to slice a long notch in the wall of the heart, as if slicing an earlobe. I am wincing in pain as this maneuver is performed. The pain is sharp and intense. And it occurs to me now that I seldom recall feeling such a sensation in dreams as physical pain in the skin or tissue (most of the sensory data I receive in dreams is visual or aural, not tactile). But the way the dagger slices through the heart also reminds me of the way Roman Polanski's stiletto slit Jack Nicholson's nostril in Chinatown.
That was the dream...