I am with a tall, attractive, elegantly dressed Asian or Eurasian woman. She is educated and charming, nearly as tall as I am in her heels. Her slender body is pleasingly full in the belly and chest because she is three months pregnant. She has left the father and will not be going back to him. I feel very protective of her.
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We go to a movie together, then ride in an elevator with several Asian couples who talk to each other in their own language, probably Chinese. They look at us speculatively but don’t talk about us openly because the woman may understand them. I notice a movie poster in the elevator. It’s for a James Bond movie starring Roger Moore, who is shown wearing a white dinner jacket. The Asian woman says she loves James Bond films and I am delighted we agree that Roger Moore is our favorite James Bond.
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The movie poster becomes a trailer. I am intrigued to see that this is a NEW James Bond movie, even though Roger Moore - who must be very old now if still alive - is in the lead role. There is an odd mirror effect as I watch the trailer. I realize I am now wearing a white dinner jacket identical to that of James Bond, and that the character in the trailer is no longer Roger Moore but a suave, younger version of myself - my double.
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Now we are in a second movie theatre, watching the film. We don’t have tickets to this cinema but no one is checking. The action of the film - like the James Bond character - spills from the screen. We are now in an elegant club - the feel is of an earlier era - where things are changing fast because Britain has just declared war on Germany. It’s September 1939. Someone makes the announcement that woman are accepted in the club but are not welcome - apparently referring to the fact that things are now on a war footing.
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A secret room in the middle of the building is revealed as paneled doors are slid back. It’s a war room from which operators are sending messages to agents and reports of troop movements are being tracked on maps. Operatives are being summoned to their wartime roles. A signal goes out to the “best agent” for the theatre of war that is now involved, the Low Countries. I see the name in block capitals: HOUL. I assume it is Dutch, and/or a cover name. It occurs to me that this may be the name (or code name) of the Asian woman.
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Now we are traveling to the Netherlands on a plane that seems far too wide for a regular plane. A stewardess asks me if I want a drink, and I ask for a Dutch beer. She does not seem to speak English, so I specify “Heineken” or “Grolsch”, trying to roll the hard Dutch “G”. They don’t have either. I’m not interested when she proposes “Stella”. She indicates that the supply situation will improve when we meet the “train”. Train? What kind of plane are we on, anyway?
Feelings: Excited. Pleased I forced myself to get up at 3AM to record this, though my body was still very tired after much travel and teaching, and a couple of hours in the swimming pool.
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Context: I recorded this dream in the midst of leading a creative writing retreat ("Writing as a State of Conscious Dreaming") last week. My intention before sleeping was to dream up a story.
Reality check: Some of the dream transits are familiar - stepping in and out of movies and movie theatres, as plane that seems to be wider than a cruise ship etc. Roger Moore is my favorite James Bond. I have visited Holland many times. I have many dreams of being involved in secret operations for the Allies during World War II, and lots of "time shift" dreams in which I seem to be moving backing and forth between two or more time frames, and/or operating in all of them simultaneously. I do like Dutch beer!
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Follow-up: When I shared the dream in the writing retreat, a woman in the group recalled that in 1980, she had found herself riding in an elevator in New York City with Roger Moore.
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Question: what is the "story" here?
Okay, I'm going out on a limb here to toss out what popped to mind as I read this: a Dutch woman named Stella in the Dutch Resistance uses active dreaming to aid the Brits against the Germans in World War II. This is pretty cool, actually, because my high school Spanish teacher (nee Nijssen) told us stories about the Dutch Resistance movement and brought in her father, who'd been an active member of the resistance, to speak to us. Throughout the war he never knew who the resistance leader was. He was shocked to discover it had been his own mother!
ReplyDeleteHey Barbara, This is a terrific suggestion, and if I do pick oup the dream prompts - which have been many over the years - to write a tale of intrigue involving Holland in WWII, I'll see if I can work it in. You even remind me that the only place in the world I have ever drunk "Stella" was a comfortable, quiet pub in Amsterdam, by an open fire, late on a rainy night.
ReplyDeleteHi Robert -- I've just had had some correspondence about alternate & parallel realities with my vision community (& pointed them to your blog & website). So now I'm wondering if the hero in the white suit is another me, if this is my dream. If I'm Robert, I do have a connection already with a WWII fighter pilot & have often talked about this. Maybe my story is about being James Bond & a dreamer (written in the 1st person).
ReplyDeleteNancy
Hi Nancy - Yep, I'm pretty sure the James Bond figure is an aspect of me - and perhaps also a player in the Great Game in an earlier time AND of course a character I could bring alive through my writing (and could even make it to the movie screen :-). I think I'm willing to look at the Asian mystery woman as another part of me, one that is pregnant with a new project (maybe a book) that I'm a little hesitant to engage with fully - as well as a character in her own right. Exciting to think about!
ReplyDeleteRobert,
ReplyDeleteHow interesting that you are gestating another spy novel.
I liked Moscow Rules and as I remember that was a very successful book for you. And I do remember your dream connection to WWII. Sounds like this one is finally ready.....can't wait to read it.
I liked Sean Connery as Bond much better. More testosterone for the role.
Well, you may have to wait, Naomi. Dreams show us alternate life tracks, and I'm not ready right now to put myself back on the path of penning spy novels. One of my parallel selves may have different notions, of course.
ReplyDeleteThis raises an interesting question about dream life: the way that we are sometimes able to follow our progress along a path NOT taken (or once taken but abandoned)in our waking reality. Dreams in which we are with a former partner, or in a former line of work, or living in our former place, and yet the action seems to be playing out NOW.
Having said all that, I'll concede that there is still a powerful draw for me in dramas around WWII, so while it may be a long wait for that story, you may not have to wait forever :-)
I'm catching up on your wonderful blog posts. And I love this excursion into delightful intrigue - a new Bond movie starring you! Maybe instead of a new spy novel you are seeing the possibilities in your Bond explorations for exciting scenes in forthcoming children's books.
ReplyDeleteI read this after a meeting in a Dutch historic site named Crailo. We had a sneak preview of a new exhibit that is not quite ready for public viewing but included one completed component, an incredible bit of computer magic combining live action with professional actors interacting - or actually "becoming" a Dutch genre painting. With a push of a button a man reaching forward with a knife came to life and each of the characters in the painting began to move up and away from the table, actors dressed in identical fashion to the figures in the 17th century painting. I was astonished at the flawless transition from still painting to a movie reenactment - with voice over - of an Albany New York trial involving a disagreement and settlement between two men. And then after a moment the scene settled quietly back, just as seamlessly, into the still painting.
It was a wonderful visual metaphor of life imitating - even stepping out of - a scene from another time and space.
Hi Wanda - I love your account of this experiment in creating "living" paintings and would love to view the exhibit when it's open. There are so many ways in which the pictures that come alive in our dreams (and on the walls of Hogwarts) can now be replicated by modern technology and innovation.
ReplyDeleteNow I think of CNN moving a reporter from an outside location right inside the studio - in holographic form - during the elections, and of a holo-display I saw in a futuristic museum in which an eagle flies out of the screen and appears to hover in mid-air right in front of your face.