Complicated Dreams

It is funny how emotions and situations that are so complex and so intense can be so perfectly captured in a dream.

I am a male. I feel more comfortable around women than men. I am more attracted to women than men. I identify more closely with my female friends than I do with my male friends, even though I enjoy a good cyber battle now and again with guys.

Nudity. Sexuality. This is the area where things get tricky. In the dream I am in a corporate shower in a woman’s body with an intimate friend of mine and fellow female feminists. There is sexual tension between many people but also a sense of trust and camaraderie. I am enjoying myself and I feel comfortable and excited and something else bordering fear and arousal. In my heart I believe that I am a fraud. I don’t belong. If I am discovered for what I really am I will be despised, hated, loathed, humiliated. I am at once included in the ultimate feminist club as I have always wanted and at the same time distanced from it as always due to what at times like these can only be considered male handicap.

My friend does a very good job of including me. My awkwardness is taken as shyness at being new. Nobody suspects that it is the fear of a combatant being discovered in an enemy camp. What sort of punishment might await me if I am found out I can’t help but wonder.

Eventually the time comes. All is bound to be discovered. My friend and I are alone in the shower. She is sharing a plan with me of how things might work out. She is showing me a bizarre contraption which would allow me to remain in the shower but separate from everyone else. Separate but equal I suppose in retrospect. I see the word masturbation next to the picture of the fence like contraption. The thought of masturbating in a little box while the women shower fills me with depression. I feel rejection for the idea because it grinds against my sense of feminism and social comfort, but I also sense that such an experience could in fact be arousing. Masturbating in a room full of attractive feminists might be nice if it didn’t seem so wrong and so strange.

As I am trapped in my sad and sorry sensations the other women arrive. I am exposed and I have a penis once again. Things often make sense emotionally in dreams without having to make logical sense. The dream ends at around this time. These last few moments blend together scorched into my heart. The women both ignore me and see me. Perhaps they feel pity and disgust for me. I am not really sure. In any case, I no longer belong. I am no longer one of them. I’m not sure whether my friend decides to comfort me or leave me to join the others. I fade away.

Words from the Heart

My best friend Jan was different. They took her away. I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again.

Growing up, we were just like any other kids. We talked about things we liked and things that scared us and things that made us angry. We built forts and had sleep-overs. We played games and laughed. We went to school together and sometimes we had the same teacher.

In fifth grade, Jan tried to call home from our phone. Her parents couldn’t hear her very well. It didn’t seem strange at first. It just seemed like something was wrong with the phone, because I was right there, and I could hear Jan fine.

Later that year, Jan tried to leave a message for me on the answering machine. We got in a really big fight the next day. She was really angry that I hadn’t responded to her message. There was nothing on the answering machine except silence.

We started to do some experiments that week. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t record Jan’s voice. We could both hear it, and so could everybody else, but for some reason, her voice couldn’t be recorded. It was really frustrating.

When we showed Jan’s parents they didn’t believe us a first. Grown-ups can be real jerks when they think they know everything already. Eventually we got them to let us show them. They believed us once they saw for themselves.

Jan’s parents got scared and started talking to professionals. None of them knew what they were doing. Then Dr. Helsbourg came. I saw $ $ in his eyes from the start. He had a case filled with strange spinning devices with lots of knobs and wires. He said, “It seems that your daughter doesn’t use her vocal cords to speak. My sensors indicate elevated levels saratonin of in her brain. She may be using telepathy.”

My parents thanked Dr. Helsbourg and paid him for his services, but indicated to him that they did not wish to perform any further testing. Dr. Helsbourg was furious. He told Jan’s parents that they were wasting on of the greatest discoveries in human history.

Dr. Helsbourg came back the next year. The government was with him. I heard a rumor that they want to weaponize Jan’s telepathic abilities.

I miss you Jan.

Jan breaks out of a government facility years later while I am in high school. She takes me away. I will convince her to use her abilities to make the world a better place. She will never really feel like she belongs with other people, except perhaps with me. Before she dies, she transmits a dream that she has to every member of the human species. It is a dream of peace. We all see it for a time, in our minds eye, then the moment is past.