A goddess called ... Elizabeth?

A couple of nights ago I had a very vivid dream.

I was standing on a hilltop, but it wasn't the sort of romantic wilderness hilltop you'd expect in a dream, it was somewhere in suburban Australia. On either side of my hilltop, and up and down the hill, Colorbond fences hemmed in a development of brick veneer houses, and people walked up and down the hill, which must have been a park or reserve in the heart of suburbia.

Clouds hung overhead; not menacing, just grey and some lighter, almost white; not quite covering all the sky but about 5/8 of it. The sort of clouds that you don't want on a winter's day as they don't bring rain, they just hide the sun and make it colder.

In my right hand I held a clear quartz crystal; it was about 15 cm long, with a knobbly top and the shaft bright and sharp with a pointed end.

In my left I held a milky white crystal, more rounded on each end and not as long.

I held my arms up over my head and a flow of power streamed to me from the clouds into the crystal in my right hand. It wasn't like lightning, or golden flakes, just ... power. Visible, but rather like rain, almost transparent.

I felt the power run through me from my right hand to my left, and it seemed to stop at the left and go back to the crystal in my right hand.

I discovered that I could bounce rainbows at people and objects from my clear quartz crystal. I bounced them onto passers by, onto the fences. I simply held my hand out and a rainbow jumped out.

A voice in my head said, "This power is from the Goddess Elizabeth."

And soon after that, I woke up. For once I remembered my dream in utter detail; the fences, the winter jackets on the people, and the rainbows, which were quite small when they landed; only a few centimetres across but very colourful. And the Goddess Elizabeth.

Well, of course I went onto Google and discovered the only Goddess Elizabeth to be found is a manga character, and as I don't read manga that made no sense. I had, that night, been reading Death Comes to Pemberley (a follow on to Pride and Prejudice by P D James, and of course we have the lovely Elizabeth Darcy playing a leading role), so that may have explained the Elizabeth.

But I really think I had been visited by something or someone. A goddess? It's not often I get dreams so vivid I can FEEL them, and I FELT the power, I was there, really there, with a crystal in each hand.

So I jumped onto eBay and sourced a crystal  - a Tibetan Quartz - which is as similar as I can find to the one in my dream. I suspect the dream crystal was a luxury item costing several hundred dollars as it was quite large, and I paid $60 for one that's about 9cm long. Tibetan Quartz crystals are apparently used for conversing with angels and spirit guides. They are powerful healing crystals.

As I now live in a house I consider to be haunted, having a crystal which chats with spirits could be a good or bad thing. But the dream was so positive I was certain I had to buy one and it will be a good thing. When I looked into clear quartz crystals the powers and characteristics of Tibetan Quartz made total sense. Not all clear crystals are created equal it seems.

I'm debating whether to try and find a milky crystal too, even though the clear one in my dream was the one with the power.

Maybe there is truly a Goddess Elizabeth. Who knows? Maybe me. Maybe I can tell you more in a future post.

Dream a little dream of...

I had an afternoon nap earlier this week. It was hot, I'd overeaten for lunch (on salad - can you believe I overate on bloody salad??) and felt unspeakably tired after lunch. It was as if I was being sent to sleep. I had decided to read for fifteen minutes after lunch but couldn't keep my eyes open, and lay on the sofa instead.

I dreamed of Mum, and I do wonder if she sent me to sleep for that purpose. I'm sure she still hangs around here.

Anyway, in the dream I was sorting out the broom cupboard. Last weekend G and I bought a new long-handled dustpan and brush (we do SUCH exciting things together) and I promised to move the old one out of the cupboard and take it to the garage for use down there and on the path and driveway. Lazy me, I hadn't done it at that point.

But in my dream I picked it out of the cupboard, and had the new one in my hand too. Mum was standing next to me in the hall.

"I'll just sweep the kitchen floor," I told her, brandishing the new dustpan.

"No, you don't have to do that right now," she said, a little mysteriously. She was hiding something.

"But it's dirty."

"You won't want to go in there."

"There's a spider, isn't there?" I said anxiously. I loathe spiders - specifically the big bastards such as the Huntsmans we get occasionally clinging to the ceiling.

Mum nodded.  I peered into the kitchen and looked up. No sign of it; I went in slowly, around to the cooking area. Aaargh! There it was, above the oven.  I squealed and ran back out to the hall and Mum.

And woke up about then.

Honestly, the dream was so vivid I was sure Mum was still alive and with me. And that there was a spider in the kitchen. I wish the former were true with all my heart. I was so convinced I'd had a spider warning I went into the kitchen warily and looked everywhere. I've been checking every ceiling in the house since then.

I think earlier in this dream I was on the patio. I'd had a cigarette and oh heck, Mum was standing at the door. I must reek of smoke, I thought despairingly, knowing how much she disapproved of smoking. I was being very edgy and trying not to get too close to her so she wouldn't smell it on me. I think I had a  broom in my hand and was sweeping up outside. Mum was saying something about cigarettes but I can't remember what. That part of the dream wasn't as real and vivid as the spider bit.

Although it's been a stinking hot week here I haven't had that desperate urge to sleep, the sense that I can't stay awake, since the spider dream. I do believe Mum visited me. Lovely warm feeling!

I'm dreaming of a …UFO?!

Sometimes I dream about UFOs. I dream that I am on the patio here or inside watching out through the windows. It's always nighttime and the stars are bright in a clear sky. When I have these dreams they are so real and vivid I wake in the morning convinced they actually happened. Which does make me wonder: was the sky above my house visited by other beings?

I had another of them last night.

In this dream I was on the patio with someone - was it G, was it Mum? I can't recall. We were watching the sky over the top of the Michelia which is currently growing above the height of the balcony railing, when I noticed a thin shape with 5 bright, starry lights in the sky in front of me. The shape itself was dark, barely discernible from the sky around it. It was a disc shape, thicker in the middle and quite sharp and thin on the ends; your classic flying saucer.

Then it began to move west, and somehow changed shape to be something bigger, chunkier and wedge-shaped. The tiny star-like windows became long rectangular windows glowing gold. There were little lights or windows on the top and bottom of the craft. When it moved off, it was at the speed of a jet aircraft coming in to land over our house (we live on a flight path), so it wasn't going terrifically quickly.  We watched it head west-south-west and out of sight over the neighbour's roof. It was low in the sky too, not much higher than the jets who lower their landing gear over our house. But much, much bigger than any airliner.

It felt so very real. In my dream, I started thinking. I was aware I WAS dreaming, but also thinking that perhaps I should wake up and look out the window. In the end I stayed asleep.

The rest of my dreams last night were also on the weird side, if occasionally amusing. Many years ago I owned a 1983 BMW 323, and in my dreams last night I still did. It wasn't my daily driver, it was more like a car I was restoring. My daily driver, Minerva, must have been in service as I was driving a big clunky 1980s Ford Falcon which I believe was a loan car from the service people. I was trying to reverse the Ford out of the garage without hitting Bimmer, but I couldn't. I bumped poor Bimmer's front wing, very gently though, leaving not even a dent. Bimmer took offence and drove itself out of the garage, swung hard left and onto the lawn, where it sat churning its rear tyres crossly until smoke started to come from them.

I begged Bimmer to stop and calm down, and was also thinking of my lawn - the poor buffalo grass has an ongoing fight against being taken over by rubbishy grass, and now it had car tyres ripping it up! Bimmer was upset, though and wouldn't let me open the door and turn the ignition off. It took off across the lawn - westward, like the UFO - and did a circuit of the house somehow and entered the street via our neighbour's right of way. Then it tore off, with me running up the hill after it calling, "Come back!"

I was standing on my lawn, feeling bereft, when Steve H, an actor on whom I had a crush when I was eleven or twelve, walked down the hill and up my path, onto my lawn and stood beside me. He looked 25 still, and his longish dark hair was tied in a ponytail. "What do you think of my hair?" he said, indicating the ponytail. I touched it. "It's so soft," I cried.  We were standing in front of the garden at the base of the chimney, which was planted out with the plants I put in a couple of months ago.

"Your BMW is back," Steve said, and Bimmer was - but had been converted into a ute! A little white BMW 3 series ute! The car drove into the neighbour's drive across the road and ignored me. Like a disgruntled cat, it had chosen a new home. Steve and I watched it. I called it but the car resolutely ignored me.

Then I was opening letters. One was from Dan the Man in Can(ada). Talk about visiting the past in my dreams last night. Dan's letter had photos of people at a beach, a northern hemisphere beach somewhere… there was no writing on the back. There was one photo taken from the top of high dunes of a crowd of people walking by the water's edge. It was overexposed and sunshine flooded it; it looked deliciously warm to this sleeper on a chilly Sydney autumn night. Then one of Dan himself. Then one of Dan with a girl who had long blonde hair. And another of the couple. Dan's letter was a chat-up letter, but how on earth he expected me to react positively to him when he sent photos of him with another girl was beyond me. Dan always did have an ego. And yes, it was Dan as I knew him, younger Dan, as I was younger too in my dream.

I remember an adventure type dream as well, but not as clearly. I was running through dunes to a beach myself, but it wasn't Dan's beach and I was on some kind of mission. Was I a private investigator? Possibly. I've been reading too many PI books lately. I was tailing someone, someone whom I didn't know. However, that dream didn't stick in my mind as strongly as the others I had last night. I also dreamed I found some of my short stories I wrote as a child, principally about my favourite tv show Follyfoot, and one of them had been printed and bound as a one-off. I was stunned; we didn't have the money or knowledge to bind one of my stories as a leather-covered hardback. I read some of it; it was rubbish; awful writing, but then I suppose I was only about eleven when I wrote it.

I wonder what tonight's dreams will hold? I suspect I may need another blanket on the bed!

Dan the Man - Dream Invader

Back in the 80s I had a fling with Dan the Man (as he described himself). Dan was a Canuck, a French Canadian guy I'd met on a holiday in Europe. I thought the fling was the real thing, he viewed it as a holiday romance. Naturally, it ended in tears - mine - but that's another story and too turgid to go into. I'll digress if I do.

Anyway, last night I dreamed about Dan the Man. I was in Montreal on holiday, with Mum. I was the age I am now but Mum was younger and fitter. We'd gone to Montreal but were hoping we wouldn't bump into Dan.

So we spent our holiday peeking around corners and of course, found ourselves in the same building as Dan the Man. I think it was a hotel. I don't always remember my dreams terribly well once I'm awake but I remember hissing at Mum, "Don't tell him I'm here!" and hiding under something. Bedcovers? Cushions? Something soft.

Dan, naturally, peered around a corner and found me, and we had an argument about something. Nothing obviously had changed in the many years since we'd last met. I should add here that we'd met up for holidays twice more after the initial one - 1991 in the US and 1996 in Canada, with the clear understanding that any sex involved was fling-like rather than the indication of a lasting relationship. We used to argue. It was an unhealthy relationship in many ways and around ten years ago we lost touch altogether.

My vague recollection of my dream is about me and Mum trying to move away from Dan the Man, with him pursuing and finding us, and finally he was being very pleasant and friendly, offering to show us around town. By the way, I've never been to Montreal so the Montreal I saw in my dreams probably bears no relation to anywhere on Earth.

I woke up wondering why the hell I'd dreamed about Dan the Man. Then I twigged. I'd watched an excellent show last night on ABC1, Redesign My Brain with Todd Sampson. Todd is also Canadian, and a thin and wiry/muscly build like Dan the Man. The physical similarities must have lodged in my brain - which clearly needs redesigning in that case - and lo! a dream was duly delivered.

Over the years I've wondered about Dan the Man. Whether he's still single, and I suspect he is, as he's too fussy about women's looks. He's a very intelligent guy and a perpetual student; I suspect he has at least two degrees by now.

I've tried to find him on the internet - little ole stalker me - and he's curiously invisible. No Facebook or Twitter. Not on LinkedIn. He's in the phone book and still living at the same address I've always known for him. I'd love to know what he looks like these days. Still skinny, I bet, and still bespectacled.  Whether he's kept the wild mop of curls is another thing; I suspect he's rather thin on top these days. In my dream the curls were still there but a bit grey. The lush curls, I may add, were part of the attraction; I've always liked good hair on men. (Doesn't explain why I'm married to someone who's quite bald on top - I guess he has other attractions :-) ).

I wonder which old flame will pop up in my dreams next?

The night my Dad decamped to Paris

I'm not a person who readily remembers my dreams when I wake up, but last night's was still with me in the warm dawn of early spring.

It was about my Dad.

I could count the number of dreams I've had about Dad throughout my life on my fingers - probably using only one hand. He left us when I was 2 in favour of an Amazonian air hostess, and my childhood was a mix of longing to see him and have him be a real Dad to me instead of a Dad who only corresponded with presents twice a year, and anger at him ditching Mum and me. Mainly anger at him ditching me. Kids are very self-centred.

But I digress.

Back to this dream.

I had a phone call from Dad, who said he was calling from Paris. He'd left the Amazonian and their two children and buggered off with someone called Cathy who was apparently French.

"Merde," I giggled obligingly and appropriately, and he chided me.

"You mustn't swear, Cathy doesn't approve of swearing."  In the background I could hear a woman speaking French.

Soon after that he rang off. I'm not sure if we talked about anything else. I had never had a long phone conversation with Dad in real life so why on earth would I have one in my dream?

Ooh, I was a bit envious though. Paris! What a place to run away to!

So I went to Mum's house to tell her the gossip. She was in the kitchen, wearing blue trousers and a blue and white top, putting saucepans away in the cupboard. "Oh,"she said, "You know Cathy."

"No, I don't."

"You do. I'm sure you've met her. Or at least spoken to her."

"The Amazonian must be ropable."

"She is. She can't believe he left her and the kids." Mum had a 'now SHE'LL know how I felt' look on her face.

But Cathy was a mystery to me. Dreams are peculiar as we all know and ages and times were all a bit confused here. Dad, in this dream, was about 60, still fit, with greying thick wavy hair. I didn't see him in my dream but somehow I knew that. Mum looked younger too, somewhere about the same age. I'm not sure about the Amazonian but if Dad was 60 the kids would have still been at primary school, maybe the eldest in high school. The reality is that my stepsister and stepbrother are both in their thirties now. In the dream, they were in their twenties or close to the age they are now.

Dad died 21 years ago this month. Shite, it might have even been today, which is why I had the dream. I'm hopeless with death anniversaries. I prefer to remember birthdays, when the person was alive and we celebrated. So if he's in Paris with someone called Cathy, bonne chance Papa!