I dreamt Dr Sh— (my psychoanalyst) and I were in the Basque Country, taking a walk towards my Gran’s house. The way was swampy and somehow overgrown with Amazonian-type vegetation. The leaves we encuntered encountered were enormous and I put that down to my home country changing. Dr Sh— led the way in front of me. At some point, we encountered snails and I mentioned, in passing, that they disgusted me. Dr Sh— reached down the swaped swamp and pulled out a snail or slug the size of a cap cat and showed it to me. I, rationally, explained my emotions. I felt disgusted, but this was an intellectual emotion, a kind of out-of-bidybody experience.

Borrowed from El Guindo. As soon as I find out author, title, and year, I will edit this entry.

I dreamt dad and I were driving to Gran’s house (as we used to do every Sunday). On our way, we encountered a group of terrorists, who stopped us and made us get out of the car and into a barn/house/caserio-type building. In that building, there we many other people . Our car had been left in a gravel car parked outside the barn, where there was also a yellow bus, one of those American kids go to school in. Inside the barn, the terrorists (at least one man and one woman) told us to give them what we had on us —including watches, wallets, credit cards and contact lenses, which we had to pierced so as not to escape.

I said I needed to go outside in order to take my contact lenses off. I took with me a little white eye shadow container which had a dirty mirror. the woman terrorist came out with me and my dad. I remember being able to communicate with my dad telepathically. My dad said, with his voice: “I am going for a stroll within the confines of the garden”. Outside, other people were everywhere, getting rid of their possessions. I knew my dad was going to try to escape and I decided to stay and make friends with the terrorist woman to get her attention, so my dad could try to get us some help. I talked to her about girly things. At some point, I said to her I was going to see what a group on the far end of the garden were up to (or was I going to the loo?). She let me go. One I was on the far side of the garden, I could see through a glass door that my dad had been successful in getting help. A group of armed SAS is helmets and glowing yellow vests was coming towards me. I decided to escape and look for dad as they were entering the garden.

All was mayhem; people running in different directions. In this chaos, I saw Julio, a tall boy I used to fancy in high-school come towards me and pick me up, really happy to see me. When he put me down, I saw my dad come out of the gents, freshly shaven and smelling of eau de cologne. He asked me: “why didn’t you escape with me?” and I replied that I though I’d better distract the terrorist.

I am standing in a space by a window with volets [shutters]. The word came to me only in French. In front of the is a horizontal space, like a low and wide windowsill. I am polishing a pair of small scissors. I recognise the scissors as they are those my mother has in her living room, by the sofa where she sits. The screw holding them together is very loose and their tip is bent. She uses them to cut facial hair. I am still polishing them when my newly married friends O. and C. come outside the window and chat to me. I can’t remember what they say but they don’t stay long. After they’ve gone, I continue polishing the scissors in my hand. When I finish, I place them down on the windowsill-like surface an take another unpolished pair of the same scissors. In the dream, I am surprised of the fact that I have so many of them…

Last night I deamt my partner left me for another woman. When he told me so, he said I was mere “drapery” in his life.

Drapery (From Oxford English Dictionary Online)

1. Cloth or textile fabrics collectively.
2. a. The trade or business of a draper; the manufacture of cloth (obs.); now, the sale of cloth and other textile fabrics.
b. A place where cloth is made.
c. A place where a draper’s business is conducted.
3. The artistic arrangement of clothing in painting or sculpture.
4. The stuff with which anything is draped, or artistically covered; clothing or hangings of any kind; esp. the clothing of the human figure in sculpture or painting.
5. attrib. and Comb. drapery drudge, man, an artist employed by another artist to paint the drapery in a composition.

Drappery is probably Lacan’s S1, that little bit of “unconscious nonsense” Adams¹ refers to, like Phillipe’s licorne in Laplanche and Leclaire’s paper on the unconscious…

I wonder what I was trying to tell myself.

1. Adams, P (1991) The art of analysis: Mary Kelly’s “Interim” and the Discourse of the analyst. October, Vol. 58, Rendering the Real (Autumn 1991), pp. 81-96 [back]