musings, mutterings, and creative muddle. . .





Thursday, February 18, 2010

Liquid Brain-o & The Lizard

Forgive me.

Writer's block. . . more like a clog.  So many things to say and talk about, it's got the plumbing from my brain to my fingers all clogged up.  Shake it out. . . .shake it out.

I've been thinking a lot lately about a recurring dream I used to have.  I thought about telling you about it today, but decided not.  I have a muffin recipe and photos to share.   And I just didn't feel like talking about about lizards today.  I decided that I would write it for, maybe, next week.  I go back to struggling with my writer's clog.

Then my beloved J-girl texts me and tells me she had a dream about me that made her wake up overwhelmingly, and inexplicably, sad.  I didn't die or anything - but it really affected her.  I knew just what she meant.  Made me think of my Lizard Dream.  That's what I call it.  My Lizard Dream.

So that was it.  I was meant to tell you about my Lizard Dream.  It is what it is and it isn't any more.

I'm three or four years old - I'm a cutey with blonde curly hair and blue eyes.  Really.  I know I don't look it now (except for the curls) but it's true.  Shut up.  My story - I'll tell it how I want.  Besides, why would I lie to you?  This is about my freakin' Lizard Dream - not about how cute I am. . . or was.

So, I'm a little-little kid.  My room is purple (not important to the story, but thought you would like to know) with white carpet (hey!  It's the 70's.  There a harvest gold refrigerator and matching stove in the kitchen!).  My bed faces north-south with my head at the north (which makes no sense to me in this memory as I always remember my bed with my head to the west).  I go to sleep. 

BTW, I know it's said that people dream in black and white.  I know I usually do. . . but, for whatever reason, this dream is in full Kodachrome Technicolor from the first time I ever dreamed it.

In my dream I'm in the driveway of a big dark green split-level house with attached 2-car garage (just like the one my family moves into a couple years later.  Seriously.  I can't make this stuff up.).  I'm just kind of hanging around, my parents are around, but I can't see them.  I just somehow know they are around.  It's spring or summer and later afternoon or early evening.

Then along comes this lizard.  No, it's not 10 feet tall and it's not purple (though that's a really great guess!)  It's just a normal, spiny, everyday kind of iguana kind of lizard.  Which is really-really weird, I don't recall ever seeing any lizards - in real life, on TV, or in a book - before this dream.  He's walking along the street at the bottom of the driveway just an arm's length from me.  It turns and looks at me. . .

It's not that he talks or has big teeth or hisses at me or anything.  I just *know* this lizard is not something I want to deal with. . . It's not nice and I don't want it around.  Period.  I most definitely feel, in my dream, that this is something my parents should take care of.  They should protect me from this spiny, ugly, not-so-warm-and-fuzzy thing.

I start to cry for my parents and run to find them.  The lizard grows a little more (or perhaps its a persepctive thing as it gets closer.  It ends up about hip high to me.  Remember - I'm a little itty bitty kid) and chases me. I run up the driveway and across the grass.  I hear voices in the backyard and think I hear Mom talking.  The lizard gains on me.  I find my parents on the back patio of the white house with gray trim next door (just like the one that is next door to the house we move to in a couple years.  Sorry.  That sounded repetitive, but it had to be said) at a party.  They just look at me and shrug.  Lizard is following me and nearly up on the patio right behind me and next to my parents.

The sun is shining, the grass is green, people are dressed just like they did for a party in the late 60's.  You know, like on The Wonder Years.  The women are in and have puffy, teased hair, the men wear slacks and button-downs, that kind of thing.  No kids around.  Except for me, of course.  There's about a dozen adults - was really only aware of their legs, but have an overall impression of the scene.  I can smell the smoke from the BBQ.

Oh wait, I'm not done yet.  This is just the intermission, of sorts.  There's more.

All of a sudden, I'm in this little corner room/cell in the basement of the 'party' house.  I can see the party through the window that's just above my head a little bit.  Just enough that you can see low, but not really see anything else.  The sun is shining in - bright and warm.  I'm wanting my parents.  I'm still scared of that lizard and want a hug.  I'm crying.  I see my parents' feet right outside my window.  Dad's wearing brown wing-tips, Mom has yellow sandals.  There are other feet, but I'm focused on theirs.  I *need* them to reassure me; protect me;  show me they care.  They are my parents, after all.

I scream.  I cry.  I yell. 

"MOM!"

"DAD!"

I feel relieved that the lizard is no longer chasing me - but feel even more scared now that my parents won't acknowledge me.  I do feel the warmth of the sun upon my face (the window is to the south.  Why do I know this?  I have no idea. . . but I just do.), but it doesn't make me feel any better.  The shadows the window and cell bars create on the floor and my pink dress with the elephant (the first time I'm actually aware of what I'm wearing) and white sandals is quite vivid.  Very 'stripe-y', I think to myself.  There's a cot with a dark blue mattress along one side of the room.  I'm standing next to it looking up through the window.

"MOM!"

"DAD!"

Then I wake up.

The first time I had this dream, I tell Mom about it (she's standing in the kitchen next to the harvest gold stove and Dad just left for work.) and she just pats me on the head and tells me not to worry about it, it's just a dream.  I should go play with my Tinkertoys.  I'm sure that I do - but just don't remember.  Does it really matter?

I do remember willing myself to have the dream again (was it that night or the next, I have no idea) and I did.  I had this dream sporadically, but repeatedly, until I was 35+.  It was always the same - no matter my age in my waking world, or where I was living or what kind of house I called home - every detail of the dream was precisely the same.  Nothing added. . . nothing subtracted.  For three to four months it came regularly, like a bad rerun on TV - like a skip in an LP (for those of you too young to know - that would be like a CD - only much-much bigger - and made of vinyl.  Called a record, generally.)

And then, it stopped.  Several months go by, and I think the TV channel has been turned.  I try to will myself to have the dream.  I don't.

A couple years pass and I try to turn the 'dream channel' back to the Lizard Dream. . . kind of like rubbing a hurt, or watching a disaster.  You don't want to, but you  are compelled to do it anyway.  This dream had become, in some warped way, a part of my sleeping repertoire.  I wanted to revisit it - on command.  Every once in awhile, I'll try to replay it. . . It won't come back.  Relief. 

That dream haunted me for over 30 years.  I always had the underlying sensation of knowing precisely what it all meant - but, upon waking, I would refuse to acknowledge its meaning.  When it stopped. . . and I embraced it's meaning, I knew I was right.  The Lizard Dream was like a fortune teller's crystal ball.  Only not as smoky.  And I didn't have to pay a dollar to have my fortune read.

I'm not going to go into what happened in my life for that dream to be part of my subconscious and eventually go away (that's for another time). . . . but it did.  I haven't had it since.  I still think about it.  A lot.  It may not reside in my dream library any more, but it's just as vivid when I pull it up to examine when I'm awake.

From time to time, I've looked up the different icons from my Lizard Dream.  It all fits just the way I figured it would.  Yup.  Want to look up some of your dreams?  http://www.dreammoods.com/

If you're interested in mine, look up, lizard (of course!), driveway, jail. . . .

See what happens when a person gets all clogged up with words?

Have a dreamy kind of day ~

Robin Z


1 comment:

  1. I've been seeing a lot of people talk about dreams on blogs lately. Guess its in the air or something huh? But I know what you mean about the clog, its not so much a road block or a wall, just something you need to kind of push through. You need some creative Drano! Or creative ex-lax if you will, neither analogy (though apt) really is that pleasant. =)

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