It must look as though I’ve been partaking of a lot of Absinthe lately. Not quite. But I will tell you of my latest dream.

I was sitting in my grandfather’s house, at the table we would play cards with. He and I were sitting with another gentleman, who didn’t appear to be anyone I knew. As we shuffled cards and smoked, we took breaks to go and shoot heroin in the bathroom. My grandfather flicked my arms with his giant, coarse fingers, trying to get my veins engorged. The third gentleman wished to share our needle, but I insisted on only sharing with granddad.

I remember feeling guilty but elated. I put a few dollars into my veins, just a smidge, and then continued smoking and laughing. I kept turning around, expecting my grandmother and mother to come in and start yelling at us. But every time I turned to granddad, I just felt like smiling again. His face was very clear in my dreams, its a face I can never forget, even years after his death, and with very few photographs of him. Looking at him always made me smile. One of the only men in my life who brought me a huge sense of calm. The rest of them ran/run the gamut from inducing laughter to inducing pain.

For clarification, I have never used drugs of this sort. What’s more interesting about this dream, to me, is the feelings of guilt and nervousness I’d hold until I turned back to the table to play cards with him.

I do miss him terribly, but they all have to go. Who do you miss?

Like most people, I have recurrent nightmares. Some I’ve had ever since I was a child, others are recent developments…

For the last year, I’ve had disturbing nightmares in which I mutilate my body. And yet I feel no pain, quite the opposite in fact. I often feel relieved and relaxed. The most disturbing imagery involves ‘castrating’ myself. I won’t go into the details of how a twenty-seven year old woman self-castrates in a dream, feel free to use your imagination if you absolutely must!

What’s disturbing isn’t the act itself but my feeling surrounding it. Why do I feel so bothered and frustrated until I cut myself apart? Why do I feel relieved to self-mutilate?

I don’t pay much attention to the ‘meaning’ of dreams, I think that books which attempt to alphabetize dreams and define their meanings are simply exploiting our curiosities for $$$. And it works, what’s not to be curious about when you dream about the most insane stuff?

But recurring dreams are of interest to me, there’s obviously a reason that my brain fires these images off in the throes of deep sleep. I just haven’t been able to communicate to her (brain) as to why. A friend of mine gave me some tips on lucid dreaming and on how to achieve the effect. He says that he can ‘control’ his dreams up to 90% of the time. I envy him a little, I’ve never been able to control much of my dream world. I can think of countless times in which I’ve tried to run and I’ve tangled myself up in the air, or attempt to shout and heard nothing come out of my throat.

In a way, though, maybe the magic would be lost if I could dictate it all? If all the tiny frustrations, frightening episodes, and complete mysteries were to be lost and replaced by a series of movies to be directed by me? Would dreaming ever be the same again?