BOOK II

My relationship with Jason deepens and becomes increasingly unstable. My family has left me alone in the house and ignores me despite my suffering, and are in the process of divorce. My isolation compounds with my unsupported transitioning from female to male. My attempt to go to community college continues, and ultimately fails with a severe breakdown at the start of Book III.

6/27/19

• A classic flying dream. I am scrambling around an enormous tree, hopping and gliding from limb to limb. People are cheering me on.
• I am with a child, maybe, or a dog. We are digging into the hillside in a forest, uncovering tunnels of slimy, fat salamanders. I am only slightly, if at all, repulsed. I am thrilled with how many are nestled in the soggy soil, until I realize I am disturbing them too much. I cover their burrows back up again and leave.

6/7/19 [cats, grandparents home]

• I am at a sale, standing in front of cages of exotic cats. I recall a wildcat and a serval. Around the foot of the cages pile disgusting, mushy remains of dead, rotting cats.
• I am 'home,' though it is my grandparents house, that I spent much of my childhood. Two robbers enter, intending to steal my father's laptop. They seem quite friendly, as if it were a perfectly normal affair. I try to stall them and call the police, who subsequently catch them as they drive away. My mother is upset at me, like she was in on it.
• I drive to meet Jason. He is at my grandparents' house. He doesn't look how I imagined; his face is thin and weak, and his nose is terribly broken. I want to touch his face to comfort him, but I know it would be a bad idea to let myself feel for him like that, so I don't. His ex-girlfriend is preparing a movie on the other side of the couch. I feel uncomfortable to sit in between them, so I sit at jason's feet. He urges me to sit on the couch, so I do, and soon after I am holding him, and he tells me he has always loved me.

7/9/19 [journal, water, fish]

• My father, brother, and I are at a cabin, similar to a childhood memory. We are leaving, and crossing a narrow bridge over water at dusk. Suddenly, the air around the bridge swirls with hypnotizing swarms of black ash paper, like murmurations of starlings. I beg to stop and photograph it, but the man who looks like my father(but is not him) says no. as we drive, he seems to be veering dangerously close to the edge, and I intuit that something bad is going to happen. He abruptly veers into the lake. As we sink, I understand that I secure my journal and camera in a watertight box. We swim to the surface, and my father is deliriously happy. I run to the cabin for help and find motherly girls, who I beg for help to rescue my journal, which is more important than anything else. I add that I think the reason for my father's madness is because he and my mother are divorcing, and can't live with each other, yet can't live without.
• I am in a creek, attempting to catch the beautiful minnows.

7/15/19 [water, fish, church]

I am in a river, watching the fish I intend to catch. Then, I find myself in a church. I am being pursued by an unseen group of men, because they believed I had persuaded a girl to kill herself. In the midst of the chase, I found the girl who had spread the idea; a blonde. I explain sympathetically that I didn't cause the girl to kill herself, but rather that I was comforting and existentially readying her for death, as she herself prepares her suicide. It seemed to be my job. I ask the blonde what she thought I did. 'Saving the fish?' she replies, with a sad half-laugh. I look back with a sorrowful, seasoned smile, like I knew she was naive. I could tell that she didn't quite believe herself either.

7/18/19 [fish]

I am at the pond, observing the fish. Amidst the ordinary ones swim several vivid tropical fish, and I am astonished to see them. A person I hate had dumped them there, and I gather them up in a bucket by hand in hopes of rescuing them before they die in the freshwater.

7/26/19 [flying, water, giant fish, whale]

• I am racing in a snowstorm down the road at night, flying above them. It is very late, and as I get home, I worry how little time left I will have to sleep.
• Another dream set in my childhood home, trying to escape, with my mother trying to stop me as usual. I fly around the tops of the rooms and on the roof. My father tries to persuade her to stop attacking me.
• my brother is swept under the pond ice by a current. My father and I leap in to save him. My dad pulls him out, and I take off his wet clothes and give him my dry ones. He is revived, but doesn't care what i've done for him.
• my childhood friends and I are at the pond again, observing the tadpoles, which had grown small legs. I say something unclear about how they remind me of, or resemble time, or some concept related to time. Some are large and mutated, in freakish form.
• I am again at the pond, brightly lit by the sun and unimaginably deep. The surface seemed small, but it was abyssal like the sea. I have had numerous such dreams of deceptively small pools holding immense depths, and monstrous fish. The light was a faded gold, and rocky ledges loomed just below the surface. I was there to hunt huge, dangerous fish. I freedove into the water, following a whale as it descended into the gloom. I didn't need to come up for air. Soon enough I catch a monster; it is an oceanic sunfish that seems somehow evil. At the surface, many people are impressed, but my mother is not, and asks if others have caught bigger. I say they have not, and she scoffs and drives away. I show others a video of myself catching it.

7/30/19 [GP house, deer]

• Nightmare. A danger is in my house, and I am herding the dogs, my brother, and others into my room to hide. I am afraid.
• Nightmare. I am at my grandmother's house. Hot tar is slowly enveloping the floor, and I am trying to cool it with water. I don't know why we aren't just leaving the house to escape.
• in other dreams, maybe I recall Jason angry at me, and the corpse of a deer.

8/2/19 [fish]

I find a fish and give it to a nice woman to care for in her large aquarium, but a giant barracuda within eats it.

8/3/19 [horses]

I am with my childhood best friend, Tallie, and others. I carry her because she is crippled, and we go to see large black horses in a pasture.

8/13/19 [deer, fish, jay]

• I am at the beach with Tallie and others. I understand that between the skin of my head and my skull, I had put the skull of a deer. I find small antlers and am trying to attach them, but failing. Tallie laughs ruefully and calls me pathetic. I walk into the water and try to catch the gobies resting on the bottom. My brother picks one up despite me saying he wouldn't be able to. He suggests we dig a pool in the sand to house the ones caught.
• I am singing with a group in the forest, which I also understand to be my aquarium. We face a thicket of briars, and people cut them down. After their removal, all that remained was a blue jay with wide, white eyes. I suggested that it may have had eggs in the thicket, and everyone laughed and said to look at facebook because the answer was there. I said I didn't have facebook. Someone said its wing was cut off, and she picked it up by the foot to kill it. The remaining wing drooped askew, and the other was a bloody stump.

8/15/19

I wander downstairs in the middle of the night to find Jason there, reading, as he told me he often does because of his insomnia. He is standing in the kitchen, the light strangely low.

8/18/19

I am being hunted by a man. I have to kill him before he gets to me first. Jason is there in spirit, but he cannot help; only I can save us. He tells me that if it came down to it, he would 'lie with me,' aka hide.

8/24/29

Nightmare. I am being slowly but hopelessly pursued by a disgusting man. I try to fly away, but he is always close behind. We end up at grandma's, in the back driveway where aunt esther and her disgusting husband live. The driveway was flooded and it is night. We are swimming, and he keeps crawling onto and grabbing me, pushing me underwater in his lust. I pretend to like him in hopes that he will not hurt me. I hide under a tree, and my grandparents come out to see the commotion. Grandma picks me up by my neck; I am the size of a baby. She is malicious. I then have a terrifying montage of grandfathers brutally raping young boys who like their grandchildren. I wake and want to cry.

9/3/19 [fish roe]

• I am on a journey through the snow with my brother and Tallie, happy. Adam collapses, and I have to carry him.
• I want cereal, and pour a box called Roe. It was designed to be like eating fish roe; I am amused, and not disturbed.

9/7/19 [stinging ants]

I am filled with stinging red ants in my throat and lungs. I can feel them crawling, and I am disturbed, scared, and overwhelmed. In another recent dream I am drowning, which is somehow related.

9/10/19 [deer]

The dream is perceived as if I am reading it from a story. A hind and her fawn are fleeing hounds in a forest. They are trying to reach the father, and meet him beside a wooden fence, but the dogs are almost upon them. The hind turns and leaps towards the pack. In that moment, she has antlers and is frozen mid-leap, bathed in golden light, staring at me. The dogs attack, and rend her in such a gory and brutal way that I cover my eyes. A stag, who must have been with the hounds, impale her side. The father cries out, and his forehead is marked with a dark outlined circle, white in the center.

9/11/19 [driving]

I am riding in the car with my mother as she drives down our road. The leaves are a vivid, fiery orange, despite it being early for autumn. I rejoiced, exclaimed that I couldn't believe the leaves had already changed, and that it must mean a good autumn.

9/12/19 [doves, eggs, bees, honey]

• I am on a trip with my mother in the forest; there within lies a glade, with a tall trimmed hedge at part of the edge. On the top are 7 or so dove nests, with the birds all sitting on one egg each. I collect the eggs to eat, and some are crushed in my bag. My mother seems upset that I took them, even though we need food.
• I want to kill myself, yet somehow not. I go to the hospital and they agree, as if it is a simple procedure. A couple people try to talk me out of it. Jason appeared, but only his body is there, not his spirit. I hold his wrist, because he is holding an apple in his hand already, and cry.
• Jason and I are in the back of a car, and my father is driving. I want to touch him so badly, but know that I can't. He gives a small smile and touches my hand, barely, with his pinkie. The road we are on is a dried stream bed in the forest. I see a boy collecting water in a small pond, and I want to show jason, but he ignores me.
• I am looking at a tree that has many bee nests with honey. I can't believe how many fit in such a small space, but someone tells me that it is true. I eat a honey comb and it is delicious.

9/14/19 [camels, arabia]

Through narrow arabian streets, tall and crowded, stride two enormous bactrian camels in single file. They are heavily adorned with ornamentation and loom over the streets below. I am in awe and in an interlude dream, I an very disappointed that such awesome and majestic creatures don't exist.

9/24/19 [river, jungle]

• i've been having recurring dreams of drifting down a river that is approaching a dangerous drop, but it turns out to be fun, because I dive off the edge and play with people I don't know.
• I am deep in a vivid jungle, on a road. To my left looms a wall of rock and foliage. An artery of thunderstorm surges through the exposed cliff, which had somehow gotten trapped within. It felt like an artery, swelling and throbbing with awesome energy. I wasn't afraid, though I felt its immense power, like a mighty serpent, steaming and hissing. I looped around the road at least twice, and each time I stopped at a bridge that spanned a river gorge, trying to get near a man that would also stop. He reminded me of an older jason, and we both gazed into the gorge together.

9/27/19 [owl]

An owl was hunting from the porch as a storm raged outside. I excitedly showed my mother as it rested in front of the door, looking ragged and ill.

10/12/19 [bridge]

I am speaking with two unpleasant people in a mountainous landscape. They feel greenish, and look identical. We are talking about two passages that lead to a temple; one is long and winds through steep and rocky paths, and the other is a bridge cutting directly over to it, crossing a dangerous chasm. For some reason, no one goes the way of the bridge. Maybe just to see if I could, I head for the crossing. On the way, I come to a place that feels uneasy and sick. An old 90s dial phone is there, and I pick it up. A woman whose voice is unclear is on the other end. I ask if I may be permitted to cross the bridge, though I doubt she will allow it. She says I can. I ask if I will be permitted to pray at the temple, and she agrees again. I don't know why I ask these questions; they seem like a formality, or like I want them to believe my sincerity. Led by a servant, I cross the bridge, but my mother cannot. I want her to see the temple with me, but she insists I go without her.
We approach a shack. The cliffs around us are high, and it all feels green and untrustworthy. Within is a maiden of a priestly air, in a casual, middle ages, pinkish house dress. I say something formal and respectful to her, and she pokes me in the chest with a stick. I had expected to continue on to the temple, but I am to be fitted for a dress, despite being a man, though my gender feels unclear.
She asks me how many people I suppose are stopped here a year. I guess between 11 and 16. they fit me for a dress, and wince at the needles in the corset. She laughs at my cowardice. There is a machine that tests your sense of balance, and I fall off. She shows me how it is done, and I say I didn't know I could pick up my feet. During the end of the dream, I feel partly awake, and look at my windowsill to see a small cat seated there, watching me.

10/15/19

HAND SYMBOL (needs image)

10/20/19 [tree]

I'm walking among trees on a path with my brother. We come to a darker wood, and I collect several large feathers, only to discard them after I realize they have been painted. I notice the forest has been littered with paint from practicing archers, who color their arrows. We decide to turn back, and the path is now covered with chains that run along our way. I notice a tree that has been fenced by the chain, whose bark has been scarred by the arrows.

11/1/19 [horse]

• I have many nightmares of terrible things happening while I am driving. I have nested dreams where I 'wake' up over and over after realizing jason has come back, and spend the dream convincing myself I am actually awake, and it's finally over, only to 'wake' again, convince myself that now I am finally awake. I only truly wake in the moment that i've convinced myself entirely, only for it to crush my sense of reality. It is warping and torturing my mind, and i'm losing the ability to know if I am awake or not.
• a mare is coming on to me, and I seem to be attracted to her as well. I recall our faces and mouths close together, and another mouth I couldn't identify.

11/3/19

Layered. I am analyzing my dream with my therapist, and the dream within is this: I am lost on a highway, and my older, future self appears to guide me. I am surprised to see him because it is dawn and he is not usually around at that time.

11/7/19 [fish]

Some of the fish in my aquarium have grown monstrous. I have to get them out, but don't know what to do.

11/28/19

• my car is stuck in winter due to some foolish error I don't understand. Others come and help me.
• the dream tells me that I am connected to my mother. I struggle heavily with isolation and missing Jason, but I do have her, despite her emotional absence, and need to learn to feel love.
• Another of that long recurring dream of scouring old antique stores and flea markets for something I know I want, but I never know what it is, nor do I find it.