Double Fantasy

John Lennon's Attic

John Lennon had lived in a house in the coast range, according to the mushiness of the subconscious. The entire place was eerily lit and very still, and filled up like a balloon with a vague, indescribable but overpowering feeling that I'm sure came from an earlier part of the dream I have completely forgotten. I was staying in the house.  I had every intention to go to the beach, but it was night, and night showed no signs of relenting.  Some kind of grounds keeper/maid existed on the premises, but I rarely saw them. I spent much of my time shuffling through boxes of the dead musician's personal things.  I found letters and journals and clothing and photographs and all types of artifacts relaying daily life in the 20th century. I was most taken by the books and journals and letters and writings.  Yoko Ono fleetingly showed up to point out a box I'd been ignoring.  At another point some ghosts appeared to explain some things to me that I cannot remember, out on the lawn among the bending, moss strewn maples. In the box that Yoko had shown me were some books that John Lennon had bound for his own keeping; one was a very emotional autobiography.  It paid little mind to specific dates and even events, keeping instead to the emotional undercurrent and tone of various times.  Thoughts, memories and responses to different stimuli drove the entire plot.  It was a profoundly refreshing book to read, very human, and blissfully devoid of dry details of dates and acquaintances.  If it had been a coloring book, it showed only the color - the lines you were supposed to color between were entirely lacking.

I had no desire to keep it or take it, though, even though it made me feel so good.  I just wanted to go to the beach.

There were some girls waiting for me at a small market out there in the hills.  It was with them that I was supposed to finally go to the stupid beach, but it seemed I was caught in some vortex regarding the house.  They went on without me as day finally began, but I was back in the grass outside of this strange house, stuck with the ghosts.


Peru On Other  Senses

I was only in this dream for the beginning, staying in a haunted hotel room or house or apartment.  The ghosts here were terrifying, very playful in a malicious way.  They stole my ID card and my bank card, taking them through walls and hiding them in strange places.  Sometimes I was able to pick them up and attempt to put them away in my wallet, but other times when I touched them they would be so scaldingly hot or cold that I would burn my fingers.  A couple other guys were there as well, but were too afraid to spend much time.  I alone had to try to sleep there.  I didn't sleep at all.  A long, anxiety-ridden night gave way to a bright, happy morning, and a handsome young gardener tapping on my window to see if I wanted to play games in the sun with him.

The rest of the dream came much like a movie would; I was simply an observer.  It was set in Peru in the 1940's or 50's, but the entire political and geographical landscape was distorted and largely invented. Peru had been spiraling into chaos, which had put them at terrible odds with Argentina, who bordered them the way that Bolivia usually does.

A very beautiful woman was living at this time.  She was unable to see, hear or speak, but had a great sense of people's emotions and the world around her.  She had no way to directly speak with others - not by voice, sign or writing - but had found all kinds of ingenious other ways to communicate clearly.  At one point she had had a love affair that produced a son, and she was, to the best of her ability, a good mother.  From a similar relationship she was about to have another child, but the legal cloud spreading over the nation began to cast a shadow over her happy home.  Many men accused her of immorality for having sex out of wedlock, but a woman who defended her claimed, "she lives in a different reality than us, and therefore has an independent moral compass uniquely her own.  She is not unwed; she is married to the whole word.  All of her actions are pure."

When her second son was born, she was bestowed with some semblance of eyesight that enabled her to take a job as a waitress.  She was still completely mute, but as always very kind.  As usual, it was women who were sympathetic towards her; she had some female friends with whom she would collect into wicker baskets the mushrooms that grew in the alley behind her work, when the rain ended and the clouds parted to reveal spectacular Andean views.  Men, on the other hand, were continually passing laws that could have dire consequences for her life.  They legalized slavery and cornered her outside of the restaurant one day to claim her as their property, but on account of being unable to hear a word they said, she remained unmoved, and politely pushed past them to return home to her family.  

She was like a magical fairy creature who defied all attempts to hold her down with the infinite powers of innocence.