(2/1/05) did it really happen?; friends at a film festival

(No place/time info for entry in paper journal.)

Dream 1

I was up in a bedroom overlooking a backyard and a street like a "T" or cul-de-sac separated from the backyard by a tall, wooden fence. A group of kids played in the backyard. A girl, possibly black, walked down the street and was suddenly hit by a car.

Everybody in the backyard, somehow seeing the event "through" the fence, panicked. I tried to keep a hold on my emotions. I called 911. I talked with them for a while, giving a confusing speech about where I was, when the accident happened, and if anybody had helped yet. But now the dispatcher was telling me the girl had already been taken away, dead, by some police who had been called earlier.

I was now standing somewhere like a backyard with my mom. It was now like all of this had only been a "suggested" (i.e. not really remembered) memory of my life from when I was two or three.

I asked my mom, "Did it really happen?"

My mom said, "Yes."

I said, "Well, did I see it happen?"

But my mom didn't answer. She just looked at me, deciding whether she should tell me. The closer she got to telling me, the less I wanted her to. I felt like if she told me out loud what I already suspected, all the trauma from the accident would come back on me, even worse.

Dream 2

I was part of some short film festival. The films had been shown. Now people were "voting" for the ones they liked. Part of the films were briefly shown. Then people would say positive or negative things.

I couldn't stand to think of my film being judged. I walked out to a bridge that crossed from New York to New Jersey. It was strange. It looked like it had hills or slopes or tiered tunnels to it. I walked up to the beginning of a footpath. A woman came up and asked me directions somewhere. I may have helped her.

I was now walking down a street, toward my friend Y and her new boyfriend HK. Y asked me why I hadn't voted for HK's film to be in first place. I said, "Because it was... not flat, but not as complex and full as it could have been."

Y got mad. She started saying all kinds of positive things in defense of HK. Now she was holding something in her hand -- white, sometimes textured like an Osage Orange fruit, sometimes textured like cottage cheese or a Pakistani pistachio dessert, sometimes textured like a small, long-furred, grey and white kitten.

Y asked me, much more calmly, almost sadly, why I never try to make contact with her. I made some excuse and then said something like, "But we're talking now. We're making contact now. Let's keep it up."