Dream: The Dance Student and the Ocean Horses

I was an art student of some kind; like a dancer. I might have been a young girl, but during the course of the dream I became myself (probably idealized to be in my forties). I was attending one school (possibly Reed College), had been accepted at another school. The schools were along a long curving bay. The school I wanted to go to was away along the coastline, to the left; there were lights of small towns along the bay, and the school’s lights shone like small blue lights over the water.

There was a side-scene where three or four female councillors were discussing my transfer. They were all wearing narrow dresses, in a business-academic style. One councillor was championing me; I forget the details of the discussion, but there were some rules that would have to be relaxed or bent to allow me to go. My champion concluded the argument with “Well, at least my ass has a cleft in it,” (implying that the others were tight-assed), and “Excuse me; I’m being a bitch.”

Back at the beach, I stood on a high dune or loose sandstone cliff about eight feet high overlooking a lower beach and the water. It was twilight; there was enough light to see the sand and the water, but the lights were still on in the distance. I climbed down the nearly vertical embankment and realized that I’d left my backpack in the beach grass at the top. I started to climb back up, which became extra tricky—I moved as if through treacle, the cliff was suddenly extra crumbly, hand and footholds became inextricably difficult. The tide surged in, and I got wet from my feet to my knees.

After some effort, I made it back to the top of the sand embankment and my pack. I looked back down at the beach below. Suddenly, three white horses with rippling manes were on the sand below; I have the impression that they came out of the waves. They wove back and forth in front of me; they whickered at me, pulling back their white lips and showing their not-quite-as-white teeth. They wanted me to come with them, but there wasn’t a way for me to climb down and I told them so.