Dreams and Writing

Dreamt I was attending some sort of museum lecture. The speaker was a local radio hostess, and she was talking about paleolithic art. She asked the audience a question, and I answered something about ancient Paganism. Her response was to walk up a clear acrylic pipe that was sticking through the museum wall. There was a bit of a break in the dream...

More clearly, I took an elevator up to the top of the building. (This is usually a bad sign, as elevators in my dreams typically stop between floors, go to the wrong floor, or give every indication of moving after their doors have opened and you're just stepping out.) I got to the top without mishap... and then the anxiety motif hit.

A bunch of us were at the tip top of the building. I have a strong image of either the Empire State Building or the Chrysler Building (in other words, tall, narrow, and pointy). We were in a kind of indoor-outdoor observation floor; no glass, but lots of vertical metal bars to keep people from falling -- sort of like the fire escapes on the south end of the Prince Lucien Campbell Hall building on the U of O campus. The building started to sway back and forth as if it were a tree in a strong wind, or else as if the building were made of rubber.

There's nothing quite so alarming as looking down onto the tops of other buildings from an observation grating which is supposed to look out. The top of our building swayed all the way down until it was dangling about ten feet over the roof of a smaller, neighboring building. During all the swaying, I and one other woman managed to get outside the grate, and we were hanging over the other building. I think a second woman from inside was urging us to let go and drop onto the other roof.

Our skyscraper paused -- there was a sense that it might go lower -- if we dropped, would the observation deck fall on us? -- and then it began to straighten. We'd missed our chance to drop safely. I locked my arm around the bars as we were flung upwards.

Upon waking I had a strong feeling that I'd just received an oneiric tarot card reading featuring "The Tower."


On the writing front.

Finished critiquing stories for tonight's Wordos session; it's always interesting to see how other folks write characters and also their language usage.

Received a rejection (after 103 days). Hmmm. Looking at the record holders, it looks like I need to query some folks who've been sitting on my manuscripts.