What Dreams Are Made Of

I've stayed in bed probably 20 of the last 24 hours. It's impossible to do such things unless, deep down, one really needs sleep, and sometimes it takes a good depression to keep one in bed long enough to catch up on the sleep we really don't think we need.

In the last two hours or so of sleep, I finally started to dream, at last aware of the signals my unconscious mind is sending me.

I'm riding the Tube and get off at the Tottenham Court Rd. station, and walk to work on a cool, wet London morning. I stop at a video store and for some reason, am looking for a game... a driving game, I think, but I don't know why. I search and search, but can't find one. There are some familiar faces present, but nothing happens. I have a hard time walking, but I head to London University College, where I appear to once again be a graduate student. In the halls of the gymnasium (I didn't know they had one) I encounter several former friends from my student days at Georgia Tech. They are brutal wicked, making fun of me and the way I look. I try to walk away, but even the slightest gait is beyond me. Instead, I struggle and struggle just to barely move my legs. All of my former friends have now joined in the ridicule. I've had enough of this, so I wake up.

I do runners' stretches in bed on the half-baked theory that I can' walk properly because my legs are cramping. The morning sun is really lighting up the living room; it must be 6:30 am. Despite having loads of sleep, I'm still too tired to face the day, so I return to bed.

I'm back in the gymnasium locker room, women's, where I see placed at the door the shoes and purse of Heather, a former friend and near wife. She runs with the crowd mocking me earlier now, so I keep myself quiet, hidden. I think she catches a glance of me in the mirror - I look a mess - but she doesn't say anything. I leave. The hallway now leads to some sort of multi-unit dwelling. I live here. I see Bear, a former student of mine. He's with his girlfriend, Harp... they sort of belong here, we were all in this town at the same time for a year or so. Harp exclaims, "Oh, that's what they were talking about, he's here!" I hate it when people call me, 'he!' Of course, I had to admit, I was looking a bit butch.

Bear gets this pained look on his face, like he always does when he has to give bad news. He knows why my 'friends' are making fun of me, having just figured out that me being here is the reason why, and now in the uncomfortable position of being associated with them. Having already been there and been made fun of in person, I already know what he's about to say. "They misunderstand you," is all he finally says.

I leave and catch a bus headed to 2-something, I can't recall. It was a neat name... I still can't walk normally.

I'm on an older style bus - a RouteMaster - the double-decker kind you see on movies with the back open and the pole you can hang out from. London has slowly taken them out of service for more modern, boring buses, and a few 'caterpillar' buses... three buses joined together by a flexible tubing of sorts. I was lucky to ride a RouteMaster when they were still running, as this bus was headed out of London on an early morning, it was clean and empty, it's bright yellow, 'Do Not Step Forward Of Line While Bus In Motion' lettering in the floor mats were still bright and yellow. The grooves of the mat were brand-new clean. I hung outside on the railing, one last time, and find myself getting off at a stop after I realize that I'm headed in the wrong direction. In fact, I can't remember why I'm on a bus at all!

I walk into a building consisting of small rooms with beds, sort of like a hospital. There are TVs showing a video of a woman- a former man- who was now some sort of author (I had seen her ad on the bus). The screen flickered with shots of her visage taken every few years apart.

I heard screams of laughter from the rooms next door, now out of site, "She's not a woman!" I swear it's the same people who were laughing at me earlier. The images continue to show, each one the same person just a little bit older. We see the transition from man to woman, each image accompanied by laughter and taunts from the other room. The images go from youth, to well beyond old-age, into decay, even. Still, as a rotting skeleton cries from the other room, "She's not a woman!"

I'm sitting on one of the beds, watching the images. A man in the bed next to me is doing something, I don't know what, sexual maybe, and he carelessly throws his coat on me. I throw it back at him in disgust. Can't he see I'm sitting right here?

Then a woman enters- the same one on the TV screen- she's like a nurse here, and I hear her giving advice to the fella on the other bed, "Read with you head down, so that you always know what your hands look like!"

I look at my hands... they are filthy... filthy dirty in a way I've never seen them before. I'm embarrassed. What lady would have hands like these! I try to rub them clean, but they stay dirty. The nurse comes over and consoles me, and starts to cleanse my hands, rubbing them gently... they start to look clean again, like my normal french-manicured hands.

Before she can finish, she needs to tend to other rooms. I walk over to a sink and finish cleaning my hands, walk out on the street and catch a Tube headed toward Tottenham Court. Rd. I remember thinking how much I wanted to be an author and write stories of people living in London. I wake up, for the first time refreshed from sleep.

Analysis
Wow. I don't know where to start, or even if I want to go through this here. A mix of history, current events, and maybe, a bit of healing. Once again, I have dreams where I can't walk properly. As I'm not being chased per se, this seems reflective of goals not being met, or perhaps delayed. No kidding. Looking at dirty hands is a warning to beware of false friends and dishonest people.

All in all, a pretty through summary of recent life with a possible warning to the future. I think the cleansing of the hands might represent finally letting go of all the guilt, shame, and ridicule of being what I am. God, I hope so! But who was the trans lady washing, and why was it that I had to finish on my own? You know, some people believe that every character in your dreams is really a projection of yourself. Brutal, ay?

Ah, to be a writer... what could be better? How about a writer who plays poker in her spare time? Or vice-versa, even!