Myrna Nieves and Robert Roth

The Dreamer and The Agent

Our story has emerged from both our dream and awake states. It also includes excerpts of Paul McCartney’s interview in The New York Times, Serena Williams’ interview in the Guardian, and a scientific paper about the future of the Earth in The Conversation.

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Part One

All the color of awakened aurora
may the sea and you expand it into a dream
that it carry my ship of seagulls
and leave me in the water of two skies.
Julia de Burgos, translation from the Spanish: Jack Agüeros

Max:
How are you bearing up?

Got some fan mail from Puerto Rico. A group of girls from St. Ann's elementary school sent you copies of their dreams. It was a class project to write up at least one dream a week. They call it the Aurora Dream Project. Will mail them to you.

Aurora: 
I am surviving! I feel in a rut: no ideas, scattered dreams, very little will to write. Under a corner of my sheets though, a tiny light sparkles—I think it's hope. This too shall pass….

The Aurora project is imaginative and dangerous. So interesting! I'll read some of the dreams soon. I had some unusual dreams myself about Puerto Rico, some months ago. I can barely remember; I did not write them. Maybe I can begin remembering again, pulling dreams slowly from my soul, like those strings of little flags that Tibetans create and could be art, enigmas or prayers. I hope not to cry.

Max: 
Don't worry. It's like riding a bike. Once you dream you never forget how to dream.

Aurora:
I had a dream last night, Max! I purposely remembered it:

I am taking care of a baby or small child in a house that resembles my parents' home in my hometown. My father is with me, but not too close; he seems to be in another room. I am waiting for a delivery of food and goods during the pandemic. I look outside and notice across the street an old mansion about three stories high, sitting on a low hill. I decide to go explore it. I put the baby to sleep; leave her with my father and walk to the place.

Standing in front of the mansion is a friend from my hometown whom I have not seen in decades, and I never think of her, Elsie V. She used to throw great dance parties that I enjoyed as a teenager. She greets me and tells me that she used to rent a room in the top floor of the house, but got sick and had to leave. Some people or beings told her that they would come and help her but they never arrived. "They never came." Now, she continues telling me, nobody lives in the house; it has been abandoned. I look at the front door and the building number is "0," but carved as a circle or an O. I find this quite unusual and tell Elsie that I would like to go inside. She responds to go ahead and I enter the house.

Everything inside the mansion is deteriorated, in shambles. It is not easy to walk among the rubble. I see a stairway going up, probably to the room where Elsie lived. I go up two floors but see glimpses of the room and it seems to be in the same condition as the rest of the mansion. I decide to go back, walk down the stairs and leave the house. Elsie is no longer there. I start walking downhill, towards the right, and see that across the street the car with the delivery has arrived. I rush down carefully, apprehensive of my footsteps, because I don't want to fall. I think the baby is awaiting the food, and I don't want to miss the delivery. The delivery people seem to be the only thing that is truly real.  "They never came," I remember my friend's words as I wait to cross the street.

This dream is unsettling. The mansion looked fine from the outside, but the destruction in the inside was disheartening. I wonder if I should have kept walking up. Maybe I entered the house because I had the faint hope that, if I was in that room, they (the people or beings) would—this time—arrive.

I also wonder if the baby that I was taking care of was also me.

Max: 
Okay. Okay. I knew it was only temporary. This is quite the dream. I can picture it. In times of horror we still have our dreams. Dreams of sorrow, dreams of pain. They're still dreams.  I think that is how we'll market it.  We can do another book. Or maybe a series of videos of you reading each dream. I like that idea.

I was also thinking of you talking dreams with the girls from St. Ann's. We could do it by Skype or Zoom.   I know the Island has been hit hard. So we can give them a special rate.

Aurora: 
I know that you are here to make money as your main interest, but I don't like to take advantage of people's horrors to market dreams. Is it possible to offer a project for free to St. Ann's girls? And maybe to offer it to the public school classes that are interested.

Dreams do not need to make sense, although I believe that many almost invisible threads, like a secret spider web, interconnect reality. 

A few weeks ago I dreamed that my friend Karla had discovered a cure for the COVID-19 virus. I was amazed and congratulated her. With her typical clarity, she told me that the remedy was not complicated at all: actually she just mixed three common ingredients: aloe vera plant gel, honey and the only one that was more difficult to get was a supplement, that she pulled out and showed me: a white plastic bottle with the letters VVO.

Afterwards, I searched the internet for VVO. Among my findings were that VVO is an airport in Russia, and also some global stocks. I can't think of a meaningful relationship among these things. Nevertheless, a few days later her husband was hospitalized in critical conditions with the virus.  Now he is at home, recovering.

I still wonder why those letters appeared in my dream. It is an enigma. Some dreams leave clues or tracks that are almost impossible to follow, but if you are curious, you keep following them, trying to solve the mystery....

Max ... do you dream? What happens to your dreams in times of disasters?

Max:
I know a major chemist. Remember that dream of yours about a swimming pool. And how a whole town got inspired by your dream to build one. Maybe this dream will offer a clue on how to cure the virus. Less dangerous than a vaccine. Yes. Less dangerous than a vaccine. The chemist is connected to a big laboratory. Don't say anything to anyone yet.

Look I do understand about not wanting to cash in on your dreams. But there are corporations just dying—not the best word to use I guess—to give back to the community. Do you think Lady Gaga would care? What about Jennifer Lopez? She does a lot of good. Has a good reputation. It doesn't stop her from making a living on her art. In fact maybe we can send her some copies of your books. I don't deny that purity has its value. But why do I always wind up with artists that think if they get paid a penny they are selling out their souls. 

Aurora, think of all the good you can do if we can get a big corporate sponsor. Maybe Coca-Cola, maybe the Gates Foundation. Maybe a bank. Do you know any independent banks in Puerto Rico? I'll check. Corporations are getting so much bad press these days. They might just jump on a chance to be seen as doing good. Let me look around and see if we can get a sponsor. The American Dream. Think Big. And everyone will benefit.

If I dream I don't remember the dreams. I think you have to be an artist to dream. I am too rooted in the daily grind of life to dream. But maybe that will change. I do love your dreams. So maybe I will learn to dream also. All those girls are inspired by you to dream. Some boys too. Even middle-aged businessmen have written how you have gotten them to dream. Opened something up in them. Seven books of dreams and there are those that know every one of those dreams by heart.

Max:
Aurora, how are you doing?  I've had a bad cold. No it isn't the virus. Feeling better today. I was just speaking with my friend Keith. You remember him. We met a few years ago in Buffalo when you were on the book tour in upper New York. He said that maybe a good spinoff series would be Daydreams Inside A Pandemic. Or maybe Waking Dreams. Not exactly day dreams but where your mind spins off to in the middle of the night when you can't sleep. This is for the back burner. For the future. I don't want to derail what we are doing.  Now we have to keep our focus on real dreams. That's what people want. That's what people expect. That's what your fans are clamoring for. That's what you do so beautifully. Like no one else in the world.

Aurora: 
Hey Max, thank you for those words and I hope that your cold is better. I feel weak and emotional often (no, it's not the virus), I think.

The problem with your friend's suggestion is that I always sleep and dream, so there are no daydreams! My problem is staying awake.

I wish I could write down all my dreams now but taking care of myself in the pandemic takes most of my efforts and time. Nevertheless, since I am grateful to still be alive, I will start writing the titles or first words of the dreams I remember. Maybe that will help. I will submit a list shortly.

Max: 
Aurora, 

Nice hearing from you. I'm feeling better. Thanks for asking.

I had a scare. A woman with a constant hacking cough was coughing all around me. But I think I am okay. 

Staying awake is overrated. It's good you are getting a lot of sleep. Looking forward to the titles. Writing the first word sounds like a good idea. If I ever remember a dream I might start doing that myself. But nobody ever dreams like you. Keep safe.

Max

Max: 
Aurora my love. Myrna told Robert that you are dreaming like crazy but are having a hard time writing them down. Pandemic dreamlock syndrome. They have a name for everything.  Always remember every dream deserves the right to see the light of day. And no one does it better than you.

Aurora:
Dear Max: Thank you for being so patient. It is true that many dreams come to me, like enigmatic fruits of the night. I have been distracted with my recovery from the accident and have not had the will to write them, which is a problem because, like an image in a cloudy mirror, my dreams could slowly fade away.

I have been wondering about how dreams sometimes intersect with reality in related but apparently incoherent—at least to me—ways. In this dream, I am at a gallery opening at Delancey Street and there is a very talented painter that I meet. I can’t remember the reason I deemed her talented. Probably I had seen her work before, or she’d showed there, to a group of us (friends of mine), a sample of her work. I was trying to convince her to show her artwork at the gallery. Maybe I knew the owner; maybe it was a community initiative that I wanted to support and I thought that she was a promising artist.

The gallery was near the Williamsburg Bridge, on the southwest corner of the street and had glass windows all around. Across the street was the block where the Popular Bank was and where I went when I lived in Williamsburg. I looked out, a little uneasily, into the possibility of crossing the street; an action that comes up now many times in my dreams since I was hit by the car. I woke up puzzled by the Delancey location and the memories of that time in my life.

The next day, a young man calls me from the Popular Bank at Delancey. He says that he remembers me from many years ago (ten?) when I went with my daughter to deposit some modest savings and he helped me with the transaction, so that my daughter’s name would be included in all my papers. I vaguely remember him; I had the feeling he had been very helpful and created an impression on me. He said the bank had a new program in which I could have a higher interest in savings and he thought of me. I was not too interested in the program because I understand very little about these things and therefore I don’t like to change the way I have things set up. But I was very curious that it was the bank that showed up in my dream and that he thought of me so many years later. So I asked him what was across the street, since I had not been in that area in many years. He said the whole block had either been demolished and was in the process of construction, or spaces for new businesses were being created. I asked him if he knew if a gallery was being built. He didn’t know. I told him to send me the information of the bank program in the mail, so I could read and understand. He said that he would ask if he could do that and if so, he would mail it to me. I didn’t hear from him again.

I told the dream to my friend Robert and he was interested, among other things, in the financial proposition. He asked questions—which of course I couldn’t answer—about the availability of funds if I entered the program. Afterwards, I felt that there was a hidden meaning that tied together all the elements of the dream but that it was beyond me, like a lost gift or a puzzle that cannot be solved.

Do you remember the last dream I wrote, with my friend Karla, the vaccine and the initials VVO (that it could be an airport in Russia and/or some global stocks)?

Today I saw on YouTube that Putin has registered a COVID-19 vaccine (I hope it is safe) before the USA. This may intersect with the dream I had with my Karla-VVO dream, but I cannot figure out the part of the global stocks. Same feeling as in the Delancey dream.

Are intersections of dreams and reality incoherent or are they just pointing to a meaning beyond my reach?

Max:
My Dearest Greatest Dreamer, 

So wonderful hearing from you. Was worried. Good to know you are dreaming your usual vivid dreams. I know I shouldn't take that for granted. My therapist keeps telling me to guard against doing that. It makes the other person feel that they are being taken for granted. I never take you for granted. But I can't help my excitement.

That question you asked at the end. Maybe we can include a series of questions for readers to think about. Particularly for younger readers. Or include them when you give talks either in person or online for audiences to think about. Have a few possibilities lined up. My therapist also says that I am afraid of spontaneity. So maybe it would be better not to include questions. What do you think?

I have an accountant who is also a financial advisor. I can send you his info. He might be able to help you figure out how best for you to manage your money.

Remember: Always keep dreaming and the world will be yours.
Max

Aurora:
Max, thank you for your caring words. I would welcome the financial advice in a few weeks. Right now I am concerned with writing, since I’ve started again. I think that your idea to have a document with the questions elicited by the dreams is a very good one and I will begin today. When I have about 10 questions, I will show them to you. They could inspire poems, stories, and/or questions for students to ponder in a class or seminar on dreaming. I did offer a creative writing workshop on dreaming at York College many years ago. I was invited by my friend Sonia, who was a professor at that College then. I think it turned out to be very interesting.

I have been thinking about the intersection of dreams and “reality.” Maybe I should reconsider the word “reality,” by which I mean the world when we are awake and we classify as “real.” Dreams are reality while we live in them in our dreaming dimension, and some cultures consider that world more “real” (true) and valuable than the reality we experience when we are awake. I would like to re-name that duality and call it something else, but it is difficult to come up with an acceptable term. Any ideas?

Sometimes dreams intersect with art. In the last time I wrote, I mentioned ‘the accident’. This dream that I am writing next is related to that incident and took place many months before the last one you read:

A corner of a street on Delancey, at night. The buildings are distant from the border of the sidewalk; there is a big space in front of them. They seem to be far away. There is nobody in the street; a sense of desolation can be felt in the scene. In a distant corner, I see my sister standing up, without moving, like a statue. She looks to the left. On the other corner, even farther away, I see my mother. Motionless too, she looks to the right. There is a grayish tone to the two figures. I call them but they do not respond. My left leg, broken, has been encased in a long hospital brace, like the first one I wore. I tell them, screaming or speaking loudly, “Look, I can walk! I am all right.” No response. They do not seem to listen.

The dream took the general atmosphere of some paintings by Edward Hopper and Giorgio De Chirico:  a sense of large, empty urban spaces, slight paranoid feelings that separate people from each other, lack of communication, estrangement. The two important female members of my family were non responsive. Were they angry with me or just unable to help? I felt alone and wondered if what I screamed was in denial of the severity of the damage, or just that I did not want them to worry about me.

The block was the same one as in the previous dream (where the bank and the underground train station are), at the last street of Manhattan, just before entering the Williamsburg Bridge. Across the bridge was Williamsburg—the Southside and the Northside—where I used to live before moving to Manhattan. Delancey had in those years (1970s - 1980s) a similar dense ethnic, cultural and commercial composition like some parts of Williamsburg; it seemed like an extension of it.

A friend tells me that the place could represent a crossroad.

I ask myself, which crossroads of our lives show up in our dreams?

Max:
Aurora,

Every time I hear from you no matter how gray the day, it is as if the sun just lit up the sky.

What a wonderful new dream you had. 

The Lower Manhattan Dream Sequence. Okay, okay. I am getting ahead of myself. But those two dreams together. Both at the very same spot. You're the only one I know that can pull that off. Wow!

I remember Sonia. When I started out I thought I could have her as a client. We spoke a couple of times. But she thought she would do better representing herself. She said she could control the messaging that way. We wished each other good luck. I see she has done well. More power to her.

I think those questions will be a really good way to stir people up. Maybe we can have a contest to come up with a name for that double reality you are talking about.

I was talking to my niece who has been a big fan since she was in middle school. She and two friends read one of your dreams and then started a giant painting. They interpret the dream, add to the dream. Sometimes bringing their own dreams into it. Sometimes their own experiences. Sometimes just their own imaginations. She wanted me to tell you that.

Heard this the other day. Thought there was a lot to it. “May all the realities we inhabit, whatever the pain, also bring us wisdom and joy.” 

Max

Max:
Dear Aurora,

Myrna told me that you are starting to write something. Taking your time, slowly but surely trying to get it right. As only you can. She is one of your biggest fans. Sometimes I get jealous that no matter how hard I try she knows you better than I do. But I can live with it. We all have to learn to embrace our limitations.  

Keep on dreaming.

Max

Max:
A.

My niece called and said she saw Milagros on YouTube singing "Midnight Song on a Broken-down Trolley Car." She couldn't believe that it was your dream she had turned into a song. Milagros is her favorite singer.

M.

Aurora:
Hi, Max!

I have not written to you in a long time, and I apologize for this. I don't recall the dream that inspired that song, although it sounds quite flattering to have a song created after my writing. I will search YouTube because the title caught my attention. I will write again about this.

I have been dreaming (every day), but not recording the dreams. Nevertheless, recently, I had an experience outside the dream world, but connected to my sleep. It was about 2:00 am when I heard something that fell outside my room, but in my apartment. It felt like an envelope or small book, nothing too heavy. I immediately felt it was unusual, and after a few seconds, I got up from my bed to check it out. I went into the hallway, since I had to go to the bathroom first, and just before entering the latter, I saw on the floor what had fallen, right in front of the door. It was my daughter's photo; a beautiful black and white picture of her in which she was looking straight at the viewer and holding the telephone in her hand, ready to make a call. She has always been so beautiful and this is one of my favorite photos of when she was a teenager. It has an antique frame of wood and cloth (no glass). I had placed it on the bookshelf a long time ago. I picked it up from the floor and got concerned. There was no way that it had fallen on its own: there was no wind, the living room window was closed. Was this a message? I went back to bed, determined not to think too much of it at that time of the night. I offered, aloud, a brief chanting mantra for her protection, and went to sleep. Unsettled.

The next day I devoted one hour of my meditation time to pray for her happiness and health. When I started chanting, I got afraid; I felt that the incident was not bad, but it was a symbolic manifestation of something that may happen; a warning of sorts. That the noise came from "outside" a dream may point to its urgency, or high significance. I did not know what it was; no clue. However, the process of exploring its meaning was similar to a dream's. I just become aware of a feeling, and follow it like a thread in a forest, without imposing any outcomes or fixed interpretations. I think our minds tend to look for immediate results naturally. I try to suspend judgements, put ideas about significance or process on hold [in brackets, so to speak] during the first stages of exploring meaning.

That day I called my daughter to find out how she was. Everything was fine, regardless of the pandemic and the world disasters of the times. I did not tell her about my nocturnal experience.

Two days later, my daughter calls me to greet me and said casually that she had a weird experience the night before. She had a difficult day because their dog got sick, had to be taken to the veterinary, she had a hard time mastering teaching online from home during COVID-19, and the whole thing was stressful. She went to bed and in the middle of the night woke up to go to the bathroom, something unusual for her. After the bathroom, she was thirsty and went to the kitchen for a cup of water. When she was drinking it, she heard a huge crash sound and discovered that she was laying down on the floor and a thin stream of blood was pouring from her head.  Apparently, she had fallen unconscious, fell down and cut her ear. She got up and her partner came rushing to her from the bedroom, since he had heard the noise. She was already standing up and tried to walk towards him, but opened her eyes. She was on the floor of the living room; her partner was hitting lightly her cheeks and saying to himself, “Is she dead?" She got up, annoyed with the question, and they both went to bed. Apparently, my daughter had fallen to the floor again and he was trying to revive her.

I went berserk. I told her about my experience with her picture and pleaded with her to visit a neurologist to have some scans done on her brain. She did not do any of that. She believed that she had just fallen asleep because, on top of the stress, she had a cup of wine that evening, before going to bed. I begged her for a few days more, but gave up because she won't do it (the doctor did not call her back and she won't pursue the issue).  My daughter thinks I am just a hysterical mom and nothing extraordinary really happened. She has been well since.

I am convinced that my prayers to surround my daughter with protective energy saved her from a catastrophic fall. My experience in the borderland between dream and "reality" set me up for it. I am grateful.

Max: 
Dearest Aurora,

So sorry to hear about your daughter. She was the coolest kid. I remember her vividly. I feel bad I haven't seen her for so many years. Give her my best. I agree I think she should see a doctor. But I do understand why she doesn't want to push it.

When the pandemic is over we all should get together.

Max

Max:
Dear Aurora,

Had two dreams of my own this week. Dreams that I remember. Or at least remember that I had them. In both dreams I wound up outside having forgotten to put on my mask. And had to make it home safely. The one last night I remember better. I was at the ocean standing on the yellow white beach sand. I was looking out at the ocean. Taking in the breeze. I suddenly realized I didn't have my mask on. Had left my apartment without it. I immediately got anxious and started worrying how I would get home safely. At first there weren't too many people there. But as I was leaving the beach there was a sandy path from the beach to the street, I walked under an arch to get to the path. It was filled with people talking very casually as they were leisurely walking towards the street. Most seemed like they were in their mid-sixties and were tourists from another country. A couple were walking dogs. I kept trying to peek at people whose faces I couldn't see to see if they were wearing masks. But most if not all the people whom I did see weren't wearing them. Made me very nervous about getting home. When I half woke up I was relieved because I realized I was dreaming and didn't feel I had to fully wake up to be safe. I fully woke up at that point. Feeling very relaxed.

How do you live with all those dreams? Do they take any type of toll on you? I guess last night was both difficult but also strangely cathartic because when I realized it was “only” a dream I felt totally safe and at peace.

How lucky I am to have the greatest dreamer in the world to be able to consult with on such matters.

Max

Aurora:
Dear Max,

You always make me smile with your exaggerated, endearing compliments. I sometimes wish I would have studied a field related to dreams, such as mythology or hermeneutics. But, I studied literature, though that may help, especially the parts of deciphering meaning, and exploring symbolism.

Some dreams are prophetic, others are revelations of the secret (unseen) aspects of phenomena around you. Still other dreams are the products of internalization of concerns, desires or fears. Maybe most dreams have aspects of the latter. I see in your dream mostly fear of death; and maybe concerns about belonging as a social being (your ability to be a responsible part of a collective). The other people in your dream were not using masks and represent danger: where will you be safe? This is a situation (or a time) in which the Other is not safe, in a subtle way (nobody comes at you or interacts with you). The "drama" seems to be only inside you. There is a slight distrust of the mind; you "forget" an essential thing (the mask)—"How can that happen?" The ocean to me is freedom, no limitations; and obviously a place you desire: you went "searching" for the sea. The other place is pretty archetypical; home, going home—origins, safety, protection. Home can also be interpreted as desiring for life in the present world to go back to the origins, to be "normal" again.  In your dream, the arch in the path is interesting: it may suggest a portal (going from one aspect of reality to another) through which you enter a "reality" in which what you fear is exacerbated.

I grew up next to the sea, and I am aware of its moods, behaviors, multiple meanings (its effects in my soul). In your dream, the ocean represents (to me) a pleasant, relaxed environment; the possibility of play. Everything this pandemic has taken away.

Max:
A.

I knew you could set me straight.

What about a book What To Look For In Dreams. I think it would be a winner. Or if not a book. An op-ed in the Guardian.

M

Max:
Dear Aurora,

Milagros sent me this interview of Paul McCartney in the Times. She is going to contact him about doing dream duets. She wants permission to send him some of your dreams.  And her friend Christina will do videos of those dreams in a collaboration. She knows Paul and they are in constant contact. He is open to the idea. What do you think?  

From the Times interview:

Is there anything different about the nature of your musical gift today at 78 than in 1980 or 1970 or when you first started writing songs? It’s the story that you’re telling. That changes. When I first said to John, “I’ve written a few songs,” they were simple. My first song was called “I Lost My Little Girl”—four chords. Then we went into the next phase of songwriting, which was talking to our fans. Those were songs like “Thank You Girl,” “Love Me Do,” “Please Please Me.” Then came a rich vein as we got more mature, with things like “Let It Be,” “The Long and Winding Road.” But basically I think it’s all the same, and you get lucky sometimes. Like, “Let It Be” came from a dream where my mother had said that phrase. “Yesterday” came from a dream of a melody. I’m a great believer in dreams. I’m a great rememberer of dreams.

What’s the last interesting dream you had? Last night’s was pretty good.

What was it? It was of a sexual nature, so I’m not sure it’s good for the Kids section. Pretty cool, though. Very interesting, dreams of a sexual nature when you’re married. Because your married head is in the dream saying: “Don’t do this. Don’t go here.” And just to let you know, I didn’t. It was still a good dream.

Max:
Dear A,

The snow here has been relentless. My neighbor's kid came by to clear the pathway. A lot of good it did. One hour later it was the same as before. Luckily I did a big shopping before the storm.

How are things there?

The reason I'm writing is that The Guardian is doing a series on the politics of dreams. They will have dreamers, writers, artists, psychologists, musicians, clergy, mystics, shamans, AI specialists and athletes all participating. They want you to kick off the series with an essay. They also want to do an interview. I didn't exactly understand what they are looking for. But they said they will explain it to you if you are interested. So what about it?  I think it would be super great exposure.

As I always say every success begins with a dream.

Max

Aurora:
Dear Max,

I have been hiding from my responsibilities and even from my pleasure venues. I have not been feeling well—it's like a brain fog, even though I don't have COVID-19. It has been going on for months, but it seems to be more intense now. I still dream, but after a while I can't remember the dream.  The possible project with Paul McCartney's songs scared me, despite its beauty and possibly rich results. I am afraid to get involved in something I cannot complete as expected. I am not used to failing in my endeavors, and it seems I could now.

I do love interviews. Maybe that is an option to explore, since you mentioned that possibility. Who would interview me? I thought my nocturnal journeys were more mythological in character. But then, most human activities have multiple meanings. Are my dreams political?  Interesting.

I remember a dream now. I told my sister about it, and that is why it stayed in my memory banks.

I was in my bedroom with a man, and we had had a sexual experience. He was sleeping when I left the room to put on my brassiere in the hallway of my apartment, except that I noticed it was not the hallway of my apartment, but the hallway of the floor in which my apartment is. I look like a younger version of me, with the unruly hair and abundant, firm breasts. For some reason, I look to the right and I see a woman walking towards me with a baby in her arms. It was my favorite aunt, Tía Carmen, who is long dead and had been quite fond of me. The child was probably a toddler, not a small baby. My Aunt Carmen looks happy; she has a radiant expression on her face and seems to want to show or tell me something that I assume is good. But when she sees me trying to put the bra on and holding the door (did she find out I had been with somebody?), she turns around and leaves! She did not seem angry or upset, she just walked away in the same manner in which she appeared: from an undetermined place far into what seems to be an infinite hallway. Despite knowing I was not able to follow or call her (why?) I felt glad she came to me and that she was happy; I felt that in her heart she wanted me to see her and was bringing me some news she did not get to tell me about, or maybe she was not meant to speak to me, just to show herself with the child in her arms.

My Aunt lost her only son when he was three years old, while they were operating on him for spina bifida, in the town in which I was born. She would not eat or drink anything after that, and after many days, my grandmother had to plead with her to stop crying and eat and live. She only stopped when an unknown spiritual lady came to the town, showed up at her door and told her that her son's wings were wet with her tears, and he could not fly.

    Tía Carmen never wanted to have another child, but I guess she transferred her maternal instincts to her relationship with my sister and me, inviting us to watch TV with her husband and her in the evenings, and taking my sister and me for Sunday rides in her husband's mint-condition antique car.

    I felt happy to see my Aunt with a child in her arms in the dream. But why show herself to me decades after she passed away? Why with a baby? I then thought that my daughter wants to birth another child (after a miscarriage), and that this is a signal that she will have her child.  Or maybe her visit is foretelling that something good is coming my way! I associate babies with joy and good news.

    The first part of the dream attracted my curiosity; it suggested the passionate person I was, and have long forgotten.

Max:
Aurora my dearest dreamer,

The Guardian is starting a whole new bureau, The Dream Division. They are looking for a bureau chief. The scuttlebutt is that there are three people they're looking at. One from Zimbabwe, one from Pittsburgh and someone from London. But I don't think any of that will impact on your interview. I will give them your contact info.

As I always say, "Every dream has a dreamer who dreamt it."

Max:
Darling A,

BIG NEWS

The Guardian contacted me. They are going to use Paul and Milagros' music video to launch the dream section. There is a little delay. But it won't be long. There have been a few little problems producing the video. So things are a little bit on hold. The Guardian dream section will start with their video. In that same issue will be your interview.  It will also run as a podcast. The delay shouldn't be more than a month or two. And then we are off to the races.

I hear Paul can't get his nose out of your book. He says your dreams merge with his. He has never experienced anything like it before.

Will keep you posted.

Max

Max:
Aurora,

Robert's friend Ian sent this to me. It is The Dream Diary of Myoe Shonin​. He is the very first person to write down his dreams. I wonder who his agent was. No one ever remembers us.

Max

Aurora:
My dearest Max,

It is not possible to forget you, since you push me and prod me into getting out of my slumber to write, even though we both crave my dreams. The reference to the book that your friend’s friend, Ian, sent me is truly fantastic! Tell Robert’s friend that I appreciate it greatly. I had been looking also for the oldest documents, and it turns out that they are in the Buddhist tradition, and I am a Buddhist! So, by focusing in my dreams, I was a partly a Buddhist even before becoming one! That is really interesting. I also know that at the end of the last century, a woman writer from the Caribbean wrote a book which was a notebook of dreams. I would now like to read and study The Dream Diary of Myoe Shonin. How did Ian get in touch with such a rare piece?

Dreaming is a part of many traditions in most parts of the world, and dreams recorded in certain sacred texts have become famous. How to cultivate dreaming became important. The Hindu oral tradition instructs how to direct consciousness during the sleep state. According to what I found, lucid dreaming was practiced thousands of years ago, possibly from the Paleolithic era, but the first documents that verify this are from the East, particularly Tibet, where the tradition of the Bompo people maintains that dreaming was part of their meditations for over 12000 years. I wonder about the history of dreaming in the Americas, particularly among the ancient Mayas.

I had a dream many years ago, related to the type of document your friend found out about.  It mentions a sutra (teaching) that I was reading at the time. Also, I was very fond of eastern dragons, which in that part of the world are perceived as mostly positive, yet complicated creatures. Buddhism acknowledges, too, the existence of many types of beings in the Universe, and the power or truth which underlies all phenomena and it is at the center of existence. Nevertheless, this is the dream (you may share it with Ian, if you like). It is dedicated to your friend Robert, who was often amused by some of my nocturnal adventures.

Chinerías
(to Robert)

Lo mismo es el tigre que el cazador.
The tiger is the same as the hunter.

I run through a meadow. I run from someone. I am a Chinese man; short, a little chubby. Something behind me is burning. I have leather sandals and a kind of robe with orange designs of trees, clouds and winged beings. I wear my hair pulled back, collected in a stylized bun hairstyle. I run very fast. I'm very scared, my back bristling.

I am now the reader. I have a book and I see how on the page, in the style of traditional Chinese painting, the fire reaches the man twice, but he keeps running. The fire is finely illustrated in orange, almost transparent inks. Through the smoke and flames you can see the man's robe. I'm surprised he's still alive. I brush my reddish hair away from my face and wonder if the fire is symbolic. I also wonder if the pursuer is a dragon, the kind that I like. I try to remember some illustration from one of the dragon books I own.

I am absorbed again by the scene in the meadow. I run fast, without thinking much. The sky is very blue, with few white clouds. The grass is green and short, almost moist; every now and then it brushes my feet. Ahead, a wagon burns on fire. I push it and it slides in front of me. At the end of the meadow there is a cliff. The wagon falls off the cliff.

As the reader, I look at the page again. I remember some words from the parable of the Lotus Sutra, "The Parable of the Three Carts and the Burning House." I don't remember what it is about. I slide my fingers on the page; it is bright and smooth, from a good book, the kind that promises fabulous stories.

In the meadow, my pursuer catches up with me. I have decided to confront him; I know that I can stop him momentarily, for he will be forced to decipher what comes his way. Surprised, I see that he is just like me, like my twin, who faces me against a background of distant trees. I turn something in my hand over and over and show it upside down, defiantly, like an invincible weapon.

I look at the back of the red-haired reader. She smooths the book again with her hand. She makes an effort to make out the letters on the sign that the running man, on the page, is holding. I know what's on the sign, even though I can hardly see it. It is a text, typed in a computer. It is the story of this dream, written by me.

Max:
Aurora the world's greatest dreamer,

Wonderful to see you're back.

Like I always say remembering an old dream is as good as having a new one.

I read the other day that multiculturalism began with the reciting of a dream. A million people from everywhere appearing one night in the dream of an ancient mystic who walked 10,000 miles through deserts and mountains and valleys and forests and towns and cities and villages throughout Asia and Africa. I hear they are making a documentary of that walk. You would be the perfect person to recite that dream in the documentary. I will see what I can do.

Another idea. I saw this interesting interview with Serena Williams in today's Guardian (have they contacted you yet?).

[The Guardian] If you could bring something extinct back to life, what would you choose?
[Serena]I would say dinosaurs. But as we’ve seen in all five Jurassic Park movies and the animated series, that probably wouldn’t go well.

Dragons and dinosaurs. Similar and different. Maybe we can set up a discussion between the two of you. Can you imagine! What a hit that would be! Okay, okay I know. I should slow down. But each time you dream everything seems possible.

Like I always say nothing can compare with the joy I feel each time you sleep. Nor with my anticipation of what you will tell the world when you wake up.

Max

Max:
Dearest Aurora,

I am trying not to bombard you. Well not trying as hard as maybe I should.

I was contacted this morning by some social activists who feel that politics goes beyond economics and negotiating the prison of everyday life (not exactly sure what they meant by that but that shouldn't be an obstacle). They said they are starting a venue called The Dream New Deal where people can talk about their dreams, their fantasies, their wishes—a  very expansive notion of dreams. But that shouldn't be a problem. They want you to be part of their dream series. First the Guardian. Now them.  One and one makes a million. I know you need time to dream. But still we need to seize these opportunities when they present themselves. They said they were inspired by the Theater of Dreams. So they will have actors enacting people's dreams, fantasies etc. 

I still remember that performance at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe when they enacted your dreams. When was that? Twenty-five years ago? What a crowd! And that glowing review in El Diario where they called it a trilingual masterpiece. Spanish, English and the magical language of dreams. I still remember you thanking me during the Q&A and everyone looking in my direction. I even got a couple of new clients that night. Something I'll never forget.

The people at TDND made a point to emphasize that this is not a substitute for activism but a way to expand people's abilities to imagine all that is possible. In any case they say that you are the first person everyone mentioned when they floated this idea in movement circles. They will get back to me in a couple of months. My head is spinning. The Guardian interview and the Milagros/McCartney dream video and The Dream New Deal all happening at the same time.

Be careful. I hear there will be a snow storm tomorrow. Drink some warm milk. Drink some hot tea. Listen to some music. Meditate.  And let those dreams keep multiplying.

Aurora:
Dear Max,

I appreciate all your ideas and proposals, which are truly great if I can follow them. I like the idea of an interview and would like to respond to that one in particular. The things that you say are not lost; they just trigger many thoughts in my mind, including new dreams…. However, things go slower in my consciousness, when it is related to dreaming. In fact, I sometimes try to minimize or put at a distance the events of the waking world because they have a tremendous effect in my dream world; sometimes the echo is peaceful and pleasant; at other times it is puzzling, and a few times it has been terrifying, abrupt or unbearable. If I am to remember and decode (to a certain extent), the meaning of characters, events, images and feeling in the dreams, I have to be careful: my waking life needs to slow down or have a sort of veil to cushion its effects.

I also have to admit that some dreams seem to be completely unrelated to the ordinary, everyday world. Maybe it is just that my mind now is different from before. The world is changing constantly—it has always been that way—but my capacity to store and carry a dream throughout the day in order to remember and decode its details (while working with other ideas and chores) has decreased. Is this due to deeper thinking or older age?

I have dreams that I have to hold in my consciousness for days so that I can write them later. I give them a turn to be written down, like an appointment. And I am now well behind schedule.

Eventually, I want to follow up on dragons, and birds (like the ones in some of Myoe’s dreams). Now, the recent events in this country have rattled me a little.

I remember a dream that I wrote years ago. Here it is:

My Globe of the World 

My globe of the world, with lapis lazuli as a background sea, is made of semi-precious rocks from the countries represented. Large, gleaming, she swings on a bronze shaft like a ripe fruit or gorgeous earring, waiting for the eager hands of a semi-virtual explorer. At the base, a compass broadens thinking and augurs routes.

I see a few countries: Kuwait, Iraq, Congo, the Guianas. I like stones, they are almost art. Australia is beautiful in litmus mother of pearl; Mali and Tanzania offer a rest for the eyes in turquoise and Puerto Rico is a small square of African jade floating in old Atlantis.

In my dream, I have a similar piece: at the base the same compass; at the top there is a water fountain made of wet and cold terracotta. I wonder what the fountain is meant to soothe. The thirst for knowledge? It is a calming sort of water.

The fountain breaks; the terracotta cracks. I do not want to lose it. Someone tells me — or I think — that on 14th Street there are auction stores, and stores where antiques and various objects are sold; they may have it. "There are lots of them." I go to 14th Street with my sandals and my homemade skirt; it's summer and the heat is tolerable. The street is full of cars and people.

The store I visit is a large place with no frills; it is of mass consumption. I see similar pieces: always the same compass at the base, but something different on the top: urns of Egyptian design, or Lladró sculptures of maidens and horses. I do not like them. I want my piece with its terracotta fountain and the fresh trickle around a tiny vine (or, among tiny vines). I walk along the street, lined with little shops selling sandalwood soaps, Russian doll boxes, and specials on spandex tops.

In another store, on the second floor, there are rows of the same piece, but all with something different on top. "The piece is nothing new or exclusive—I thought without intensity—but mine had its grotto open to the sky like a crystallized clay flower, and that's the one I want." A shop assistant told me that there was a store in the basement where they might sell it. On the street, I observe the wide and clean stairs doing down, made of light concrete. "It's a health food store," I said to myself, "why are they going to sell a globe of the world with a terracotta fountain with its trickle of water and its tiny vine, swinging on a bronze axis on a base that holds a compass between the metallic legs of an animal or other fabulous being?” Leaning on an iron railing that served as a gate, I thought for a few seconds, between the sun and the urban bustle, and decided not to enter. I walked back down the sidewalk, to continue the search.

Suddenly everyone runs; a noise in the air makes the heat fiercer and confuses the afternoon. There are aircraft with machine guns, dark and small planes with deadly weapons. Mothers, holding on to their children, run so fast their kids’ feet don’t even touch the ground. Dogs bark frantically. The clicking of the aerial machines is intermittent and persistent; it has turned the street into a narrow and dusty lane. Gone was my ball of the world with the fountain, my search frustrated, and I also run, without surprise. These are the times; it is just that, despite the warnings, I had forgotten.

Part Two

I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky. Then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?
Zhuangzi

Max:
A,

Have been under a lot of pressure lately.

I need to slow down.

Like I always say, if you race to get in front of your dreams there will be no more dreams left to chase. I should listen to my own advice.

M

Max:
Dearest Aurora,

I read a review of a new book called The Dreamer and the Agent by someone called Norma Rosenbaum. I thought it was about a relationship like ours. Thought this should be interesting. Was upset that I hadn't thought of doing something like that myself.

But no! It is chronicling where the life of a Dreamer and of an ICE agent intersect and clash. Then I hear the book is causing a real conflict between my niece Rebecca and her mother. Rebecca says the book creates a divide between acceptable immigrants and people who don't conform to pristine versions of the American dream. Making it that much easier to marginalize them, keep away crucial services and deport them. My sister tells her you have to start somewhere. And look at what the backlash was against just the dreamers.

Well Rebecca is buying none of it. She is protesting outside ICE headquarters, sitting in front of ICE vans that will move people into hidden locations to be deported and two days ago she blockaded the home of someone ICE wanted to deport.

My sister is worried that she will get arrested or hurt. Rebecca tells her to chill and that she is no better than an ICE agent.

They asked what I thought. I said no way I am getting in the middle of this. So they are both angry at me. One more headache I didn't ask for.

Aurora:
I like your niece, even though sometimes young people’s frankness can have a searing coldness that can be hurtful to the parents, because we worry so much for them that we annoy them. Rebeca seems to be quite brave, and is very much in tune with a sense of justice and compassion that has been developing lately. Just a few weeks ago, I read a translation by Chris Brandt of comments from a book by a recent author which point to this issue. I will quote it for you, since I already read it at the event that you set up for me last week with the girls of St. Anne’s (thank you again, Max). The translated excerpt reads:

“We are living extreme and unprecedented times. The immigrants at the U.S./Mexico border are fleeing wars and intolerable economic and political situations in Central America. They arrive with nothing but themselves and their children, whom they may lose if they are arrested. Sanctuary cities are part of the paradoxical response to an enormous political and humanitarian crisis. The emotional height of this immigration crisis came with the separation of families. Children are taken away from their parents, held in separate places, and many of the parents are deported. The emotional and socio-political crisis these policy decisions have provoked is still developing…. We see, on the other hand, that protests in the name of various causes have proliferated, while the economic imbalances and the racial and political divide deepen in a nation that is assumed to be stable.”

I think displacements of population (even within the same country) by wars, economic imbalances, natural disasters or political oppression are quite disturbing. And we can never feel “safe” enough: now it is happening to “them”; tomorrow it can happen to “us.” Sometimes that reality is hard to absorb, or to live. It is often difficult to see.

Max, this reminds me of a dream I had some years ago and never forgot. I think it was published in some magazine. It was simple, but intense. May I share it with you? I entitled it:

The Bridge

I wake up in the middle of a bridge, possibly the Brooklyn Bridge. I am standing in my long flannel robe in the middle of a bridge, half leaning on top of a cream-guava column (an indescribable color, but I perceive it clearly). I look at the planks of the bridge at my feet and the serene sapphire water around me. Why am I waking up on a bridge and not in my bedroom, in my apartment? At my sides there are two people, also standing, at rest, as if guarding me while I come out of my fluster. I wonder if they are my guides; they are masculine, they are not menacing figures; I feel comfortable between them. They don't move or try to touch me. For some reason I look to my right and see two long lines of people wanting to cross. There are policemen stationed in each of the lines asking for papers—perhaps passports—and people are somewhat desperate or there is a lot of haste in their intentions. A fight breaks out between two, they fall rolling over onto the floor and one of them stubbornly tries to strangle the other. People run to separate them and with some effort, they succeed. I turn my attention to myself, I see my feet, and realize that I have not moved much because I do not sense that I am firmly situated in this dream realm, or perhaps the bridge scares me. I don't want to wake up there. How did this happen? I make an effort and close my eyes, squeezing them tightly. I wake up again, this time in my bed in my Williamsburg apartment, staring at the pink sari that acts as a curtain on the window. I wake up quietly, wearing my flannel robe and winter socks.

I know that those who survived the fall of the Twin Towers crossed the bridges, slowly and heavily, covered in white dust. The atmosphere of my dream, although with a warm and summery climate, was somewhat more agitated, and recent: perhaps all these people were immigrants; or perhaps they were refugees from hurricanes or plagues, and wanted to enter the City.

I feel grateful for the guides at my side, they felt protective and respectful. What would they want me to observe?

Max:
How long it has been not hearing from my dearest deepest dreamer. Aurora it is good to know you are okay. These are hard times.

The tension between Rebecca and her mother is now not so bad. What a relief. Rebecca was arrested sitting down in front of an ICE van. My sister came and bailed her out. The other protesters kept telling her what a great mom she had. In fact they sang a protest song that includes the names of people in the struggle and included her name in it. My sister telling me about it was moved in a way I never saw before. She is still not thrilled that Rebecca put herself in danger but is very proud of her. Rebecca is now working on her memoir. I told her protest memoirs are trending like never before. She says I will have to wait till she finishes it before she shows it to me. I wonder where she got that from?

That dream of yours is something else again. You have been holding out on me. You never showed it to me or told me it had been published somewhere. Do you have rights over it? Can we include it in a new book. So much pain, so much horror. Always a winning combination. Still I think the new book needs a little balance. But this is a good start. Do you have any lighter dreams you haven't told me about. If not, I have been thinking of ways to lighten your dreams. It won't shift your whole interior life. Just very occasionally loosen certain constraints and broaden the scope of your dreams. Why did I write that? I love your dreams just as they are. Please forgive me. That came out so badly. To mess with success like yours is crazy.

Like I always say, an old dream remembered is always better than a new dream forgotten.

Yours as always in tangled confusion,

Max

Aurora:
Yes, Max, we have not been in contact for some months, and even if the times are hard, as you say, dreams keep coming in now, or are remembered from the past (space and time sometimes seem to be irrelevant in that context).

I felt your apprehension (or fear) in the first note about Rebecca, and I can understand how you feel. Her issue involves family conflicts, possible police action to suppress protesters, and a situation at the border that may still be critical, even though the media is not covering this too much now (the new epicenters of attention are Ukraine and the selling of Twitter). The Bridge dream felt lighter to me, since there may be a timeless application of its meaning. Whether it suggests war actions like the fall of the Twin Towers at the beginning of the century, exodus of people due to environmental disasters, or refugee crises around the world now, the dream has a scope that surprises me. What could be larger at this time?

A puzzling aspect of my dream is that there are the two “guides” or spiritual entities (protective functions of the consciousness, “higher self”?) that support the dreamer during the chaos that ensues. Why two? I remembered that there is a long history about the belief that there are the two guides next to us in this life’s journey, although in truth, it may just be that we often think in polarities. That the dreamer finds herself suspended in midair in the middle of a bridge, barefooted and in a nightgown, may point to her (and most people’s) fragile condition in these challenging times. The presence of the “guides” in the dream felt very soothing. They helped me (the dreamer) to see without freaking out.

This dream offers no solutions. Neither has it insinuated the ironic biases in some of these “migrations.” What could be done in these situations? I firmly believe that all people deserve help when they are suffering. However, there seems to be a “need” to keep the borders of a nation. But then, we can’t help wondering…. Recently we opened the borders of this country, and millions of dollars have been granted to receive tens of thousands of migrants (refugees) from a distant continent. Are there racial implications to the contrasting actions? Rebecca (and now, her mother) may be saying something important with their actions.

And, my dearest Max, I will always try to keep you up to date with the publication of my dreams. There is no need to be jealous or worry that I will not honor my publishing contract with you. I confess that I made an error in my last note. The Bridge was not published in a magazine; it was printed, placed in a frame and exhibited in an event of a women’s group in El Barrio. And I remember that you attended the exhibition! So much is going on; it is difficult to remember everything.

I was wondering whether dreams are meant to offer inspiration but not escapism. The thing is: the pandemic and the events in our personal lives during these years may have a purpose, after all: to face what we, individually and collectively, have done or gone through. To confront the beauty and ugliness of our self. And then, to embrace it all (not an easy endeavor, either).

Nevertheless, I think it is true that I (and maybe many readers) also need light dreams, of laughter or fantasy, or alternate realities that offer our spirit a resting landscape.

I would like to tell you about a very short dream that is dear to me. It came suddenly one night without motive or apparent cause:

Untitled

I open the door and I see the garden: the flowers of many colors, the clear sky….

They encircle me with their wings – front, back, up, down.

They tell me “You can be like us. You are like us.’’ I ask, turning around, "Am I like you despite the fear?"

They answer me, “You are, despite the fear.”

Max:
Aurora,

What a beautiful dream. I have been nothing if not scared these last couple of years. Fear was never such a constant companion. It was always, if something bothers you, just go on to the next thing. But now I get stuck. Your dream feels so comforting. I bet there are millions of people who can/will relate.

It is so nice to be back in contact. I have been withdrawn during the pandemic and then had some health issues I won't burden you with. Days turn to weeks, weeks to months. And if you don't look out months to years. We can't ever let that happen to us.

I read that sleep patterns around the globe have been disrupted. That people no longer dream like they used to. The article said there are whole villages in Asia where people have stopped dreaming for months. I saw an ad for virtual dream substitutes for people who have a hard time dreaming. Nothing I think we have to worry about. There is still a market for authentic dreams. I don't think that will ever change. But it does worry me. Maybe we can see if we can come up with some type of backup plan. A hybrid between the real and the virtual: Dream with Aurora—a collaboration where every dream is magical and unique.

Max

Aurora:
What you wrote worries me too, Max. I can understand what you mean with the business implications for us if people can no longer dream. However, I also believe that as long as there are people seeking a deeper understanding of themselves and the world they live in, the interest in dreams may persist. Besides, dreams have their own beauty, and can be fun. It is concerning, however, if we all cease dreaming. Even for me lately, it is difficult to remember complete stories or images in my dreams. I have been thinking it is due to being stressed out by other writings I am doing, but now I realized that when I wake up I only remember fragments of scenes or sentences, and then I forget most of them quickly.

I truly believe it has to do with focus. You see, due to the pandemic, racial conflicts, wars, and our health condition, the external reality pulls our attention with so much force (and in such detail) that it becomes a burden, and we are getting out of touch with our inner worlds. The dreams are there, but we may be losing access to them. And we must not let that happen, because in truth, there is no external-internal. It is all one continuum, and the sprouting of dreams provides us with a bigger picture, from different angles and by other means. For example, we don't really know what the universe is and how it works/ manifests. The dream I told you about being surrounded by pairs of wings that reassure me of my own eternity—well, that is a risky word—or validity, had a strange connection with "reality." I had thought of sharing it with you and the readers but was hesitant because the dream seemed so odd.

As I was searching for Chinese historical dramas on YouTube, suddenly YouTubes about the angelic order of Seraphim (from several religious traditions) started coming in. And, they are described as wings with eyes! Even some websites that I sometimes tune in were featuring at the same time, speakers describing the Seraphim and offering initiations by that order! I was very surprised, and puzzled by this “synchronicity,” or parallel between dreams and “reality.”

The closest image to Seraphim in the Buddhist traditions I know of are the fiery ascended dragons. And in the Maya, the image of the hero/god Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, is often represented as a snake with wings (seraph is synonym for serpents in the Hebrew bible). Some people think they may be aliens. The most consistent description in the Christian and Muslim traditions is that seraphim have 6 or 8 pairs of wings. Since the wings in my dream were not that scary (no eyes), I was able to establish a short dialogue with them. Still, I feel there is a meaning here that I don't quite understand. Seraph means “burning one,” (whom you cannot look at directly). Burning with love, I read. And, I think the way they show themselves―folding the wings up, center to fly, and down― may be to cover the overwhelming view of a magnificent thing (light? Buddha nature?). And, I mean to say that maybe we all are that “light....” Despite the fear which causes most other maladies.

When I read or saw the films/YouTubes about seraphim, I believe that I saved the material in Messages in my cell phone, but later on I checked and there was nothing there. They had also disappeared from direct access in what was available on YouTube! Of course if I search I will find information, but what is interesting is the "spontaneous" manner in which the films and references showed up as soon as I thought of writing the email with the dream to you.

In closing, there is—talking about polarities—another dream that intrigued me, with a similar figure. I read it several years ago in a book by three Caribbean women writers. I spent many hours trying to decode this other dream but decided to leave it alone, since for some readers it could be a little scary. I may share it at some point.

Max:
Aurora,

"Disappearing Fragments" could be a great title for your next book. No need to worry. Even some blank pages would work. Have you heard the new song by The Seraphim called "Angels Dancing on the Head of a Pin." It rocks. It is a defense of angels against the mocking hatred and ridicule they are subjected to. Takes the ridicule and turns it all on its head (no pun intended). If it is okay with you I plan to send this email you wrote (You are always so brilliant. Sometimes I don't understand why you ever even talk to me) to The Seraphim along with "Tears of Joy? Tears of Anguish?" The dreams you write about in that book seem even more relevant today. I started re-reading your earliest books. For the first time I am only beginning to touch the surface of what those dreams really mean.

I think given everything that is happening this would be a good time to reissue them. What do you think?

To the dreams that only you can dream.

All my love as always

M

Aurora:
Max, I love your ideas! The title Disappearing Fragments is probably the one that best describes my dream condition now and maybe my mind in general, since I notice that, recently, it is difficult to do chores automatically while thinking of something else (like I used to). It seems that practical, everyday “reality’ demands an attention that to me, is quite oppressive at times. Or maybe I have been practicing all my life something that is deeply wrong. Isn’t what I do contrary to the idea behind the concept/practice “mindfulness”? Maybe this habit of mine is what got me into trouble and I got hit by a car. But then, how can I remember my dreams if I have a million things and obligations to do and think about in order to survive and be a member of a collective?

I am grateful for your funny comments on my intelligence; although I don’t know how accurate they are in light of my present condition. I would also like to point out that you are quite remarkable, particularly with all the creative ideas and possible courses of action that you are often presenting. It would be cool if some of my dreams are put into songs by bands such as The Seraphim. Thank you for thinking about that! If you send them my book of dreams, maybe they would be interested. I imagine the band on their stage, and behind them a big screen with some of the images of my dream projected in it. Fluid images, some of them blurry, but with beautiful colors.

I was also thinking that a problem with the issue of guardians or angels is that some of us may start depending on external forces to live our lives; that is, give our power away or fail to assume responsibility for our situations. But then, who wouldn’t want a restful moment once in a while? Some days I think that the guardians and voices we hear in our dreams are expressions of our inner self (so many layers in us!). Or maybe they are both…. 

I remember a dream I had, when I was beginning my second book of dreams (unpublished): 

I am reading Clarice Lispector when suddenly, I hear laughter, and it is not in the everyday plane. It is in my mind, but it sounds like an echo. I ask mentally, without talking:

Dialogue

―Who is laughing?

―It’s me ―someone replies. 

―Who are you? ―I ask. 

The response comes in quickly: 

―You. 

I am surprised at these answers. I ask, 

―And why are you showing up now? 

There is a pause of a few seconds. 

―I don’t know. ―the voice responds, in a pensive tone. 

I decide not to wait for my reasoning to interrupt the dialogue and quickly ask, 

―Can you help me to write? 

―Definitively ―the voice says immediately, with absolute certainty. 

I quickly ask again, 

―How?

There was no answer.

But it was a beginning….

Max:
Dearest Dreamer,

Speaking about guardians and angels, that's you for so many people.

You won't believe this. I was on Metro North and I wind up sitting next to Jake Fox, yes that Jake Fox, the great banjo player. He was on his way to New Haven for a country festival. I love his music. When I told him we work together, he just lit up. He said his son is a huge fan of yours. That he had been withdrawing into himself until he read one of your books for school. Now he can't stop talking. He insists on telling his dreams in the minutest detail each morning. He also tells me his son keeps quoting you, that you said, "We can never allow our dream spaces to be colonized."

I never heard you say anything like that. But Jake says he has started quoting that himself.

As I always say, once a dream is out there, it belongs to the world.

Yours forever,

Max

Aurora:
That is great that Jake Fox’s son is reading my work! You are so lucky, always encountering people who connect you and me to them. Awesome! However, I don’t remember any dream with a quote by me about colonialism…. I must admit, though, that last week I read an article that a friend emailed me about colonialism in a Caribbean island that, in the midst of a disaster, is denied benefits that other parts of the nation enjoy. It is sad when a land is taken over by some colonial military power that claims that the islanders’ country now belongs to it, but the colonized are not granted the same humanitarian rights as other parts of the “nation,” even when they are forced to fight in its wars! 

Later that week, I thought that the quote "We can never allow our dream spaces to be colonized." Points to another―yet similar―form of colonialism: the colonization of the mind. We may be contributing to it by not allowing dreaming, including the ability and time to remember dreams. I believe that by remembering our dreams we can learn something from our desires or our fears (to say the least), or from the things we haven't the courage to think about during our waking hours. What often happens is that we are still half asleep when we get up, turn off the alarm clock and turn on the tv, computer or cell phone so they can tell us who was blown to pieces by the latest bomb, what x or y political candidate said, or occupy our minds with the latest top ten hit songs. True, it is important to inform ourselves, but it is also important not to allow those things to invade us. Establishing a balance between our own thoughts and the incessant bombardment by the mass media requires great individual effort.

Upon pondering these instances of colonialism, I imagine that maybe some of these concerns filter through our collective consciousness, and the musician’s son feels them and believes that the quote was part of one of my dreams…. At times I do worry that people may be stating things I did not say in my book…. Nevertheless, in principle, I agree with you: what you create belongs to the world; there is no way around it.

On another note, I am still thinking about “guardians.” They come to me in my dreams unexpectedly, and they just show up for me to look at them, and sometimes they speak to me or speak to others and I hear part of what they say. Still other times I encounter them while reading dreams of other people. Max, maybe dreams speak about our capacity to endure while facing things that are not comfortable. They could be enigmatic or pose a challenge, but if overcome, it may make us grow. Or so I would like to think….

I believe that most dreams are trying to teach me something. I once read a dream that caught my attention, written by the Caribbean woman writer that I mentioned earlier, the dream I said I would share at some point:

Guardians

And I looked, and, behold, a whirl-
wind came out of the north, a great cloud,
and a fire infolding itself
and a brightness was about it,
and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber,
out of the midst of the fire.
Also, out of the midst thereof came
the likeness of four living creatures.

                                    -Ezekiel 1: 4-5 

The street was deserted. It was five in the morning on a day that promised to be sunny, and the houses were asleep despite the early light. Doors and windows remained closed and there was on the monotonous and circular sidewalks of small towns, that magical silence that precedes extraordinary events. The lamp pole served as an axis, a point of reference in perspective for what I saw around the corner. In the middle of the street, a complex being was locked in conflict or movement. It was tripartite, on each side a human being who could be part of the image or resist it, and in the center a sphinx, snatching them both. The sphinx was majestic and inspired fear. The hair was long and profuse; the face leonine; wide wings beat the scant dust of the street; a creature’s feet with claws. The claws stuck out: long, like well-groomed fingernails painted red, slightly curved. There was a certain horror in the monstrous nature of her appearance, but somehow I was also reminded of the relativism of appearance and terror, human categories.

I found myself suddenly in front of it and felt surprisingly calm, waiting for something. It told me about various things and in the end it told me, looking at me intensely, wanting me to understand: "What you don't understand is that this has given me eternity." And the echo of her voice resembled mine. Having said this, it took flight, taking off to infinity, becoming smaller and smaller as she penetrated the distance shrouded in the sunset clouds.

Max:
Hey Aurora,

How do you always turn suffering into magic? It's one of the things I most love about you. It's not only me. That's what everyone says.

Disturbing news. My friend Olivia had a heart attack. You met her at the launch of Carmen's novel, Dreams, Desire and Madness. She told you that she keeps a dream journal after hearing you on the radio. The prognosis is good. But is this all that life is about?

I never thought like this before. But all this grief, all this pain all around me. Life is always gogogogogo. And then you just stop gogoing. Her cardiologist forbids her to listen to the news. Nothing but tragedy and pain. They said all that anxiety is bad for her heart. You don't need a cardiologist or a rocket scientist to tell you that. That's why I never listen to the news. Why I avoid politics. The same thing happens over and over again. So why bother. Nothing ever changes. How do you not get stuck in the pain.

Shit, I never talk like this. Life can be too damn tough. Won't let it get the best of me. I will go back to being Max. I can promise you that. Too much left for us to do.

As I always say, when Aurora dreams big dreams others can sleep in peace.

Max

Aurora:
Max, you surprised me with this! It is true that you are so positive and dynamic, always looking for opportunities for creativity in your communication with others. I know this is often done in order to sell something, but I see it as a form of sharing with the world, too. I think of you as covering width (spreading products and ideas, getting people involved, meeting new persons or finding old acquaintances), and me covering depth―looking at the intricacies, implications and meanings of a particular thing (sometimes for too long a time). A perfect axis, I thought that gives me hope and entices me to dream more. And now you are in despair! I feel sorry about your friend Olivia; and I am glad she survived. Even recently, when you received bad news, I don’t recall you feeling so desperate. It is something new for me. I wish I could make you feel better. I only know how to dream.

The problem is that like you, I wonder what life is about at these times…. Restricting our diets, making doctor’s appointments and buying masks online? Still for others, worry about their kid’s ADD, the search for a job that is stable and does not exploit you; or just trying to get medical insurance that doesn’t deny your benefits and refuse to pay for doctor’s bills? Even when I don’t watch the news regularly or don’t read the reports in detail, I can’t escape learning about hurricane disasters, mass shootings in schools, political nonsense, and invasions of countries. I have supported groups that fight abuse, neglect; and I am used to protests, marches, signing letters. These were the radical years, and I enjoyed the few things we accomplished. But now some of my friends are old. And many are somewhat sick, too. On YouTube, spiritual speakers and galactic federations say that all this a phase of our collective development, and things are going to get better. But many times I wonder how. I realize I am not making you feel better, but at least know you are not alone, or hallucinating.

Now, I always count my blessings and I am grateful to be alive. Recalling and writing my dreams brings me so much satisfaction! And these exchanges with you increase my wellbeing. I have learned that creativity is not something you just do to look good; it is a real lifeline. Like drawing; painting; writing, cooking; knitting; bird watching; raising dogs, cats or frogs; sewing. Some people volunteer, tutor, do sports, found magazines. We are full of possibilities! Isn’t reality also what we make of it?

I like to walk in the park nearby. I consider it a blessing to live near a park, or near a shore. I am so grateful for that. I like to see the trees blooming now, the daffodils showing their colors, the children playing in the swings, the ducks and geese crossing the paths without fear, or swimming gently over a quiet Harlem Meer. I try walking in the grass, or standing under the low branches of a tree. Sometimes I watch the sky from a window of my apartment, and notice the colors and shapes of the clouds. I grew up near pigeons, since my Aunt Carmen used to have an aviary in her backyard. So I feel I live in a familiar and dear world when I watch doves fly in flocks near the sun.

Only we can save ourselves, Max. Although it may not be often simple, and not always what we expect―the world (and life) is full of gifts! They are also inside of us. I think dreaming is another way of accessing some of these gifts…. What do you think of all this?

Max:
Dearest A,

The old Max is back. I would say saved by the Gods or the Goddesses or whatever. But that would be a new Max. 

I really was lifted by your email. I didn't mean to worry you. You mean the world to me also.

I was down in ways that I have never been before. But I am up and running. Contacted Virtual Dreams in an Age of Transition. They want you to be a guest on one of their podcasts. They reach over 30,000 people. There will be a dream skeptic on the show who says old dreams are grounded in illusion. While virtual dreams can create a transformed future. I don't know what he is saying. Sounds like a lot of nonsense to me. But I am sure you can more than hold your own. 

I can understand why you might not want to do it. We don't want to look like we will jump at anything that is dangled before us.

 I do have some other leads. Will get in touch soon.

Keep those dreams coming. 

Max

Max:
My Aurora The Greatest of Great Dreamers,

We just had a torrential rainstorm. My basement was flooded. For five days it knocked out the electricity, knocked out the phone, knocked out the internet, a tree looks like it is about to fall on my roof. Same thing happened before. I will have to have it cut down. All of it will cost a small fortune. I guess this is the downside of living here.

Just before the storm my neighbor told me that he is putting all his money into Bitcoins. He is 42 and wants to retire in three years. He is all hopped up about it. He tried to talk me into doing the same.

I told him I am 55 and am still going strong. Who needs Bitcoins when I have Aurora's dreams to bank on. I told him even if you never have another dream the residuals and royalties are more than enough to live on. But without those dreams the world would be a much more desolate place.

As I always say fool’s gold is no substitute for the richness of dreams. And no dreams are richer than those of Aurora.

Max

Max:
A.
Seraphim contacted me. They sound beside themselves with excitement. They loved the book. But they said they have seen you reading your work as well as being interviewed. That they are huge fans of yours. That you are one of their greatest inspirations. They would like to include you in their next album. You would recite one of your dreams and they would sing one of their songs in the background. They said they would be your celestial chorus. They have something big in mind and if it is okay I will give them your contact info.

By the way I forgot to tell you that the tree cutters came and cut down the tree. They said one more storm and it would crash against the roof and destroy half the house. They brought the tree to their shop and came back with 5 years’ worth of firewood. Have no idea what I will do with all of it. It fills up three quarters of my living room.

My neighbor told me he started to read Dreams Emerging from the Ashes of the Storm, one of my all-time favorites by the way. Not that I ever want to choose one over the other. He said it was too much of a distraction. He wants to remain focused on his investments. Maybe later, he said.

I told him that if everyone was like him I would be broke.

He laughed and said okay he will go back to read the book. But if his investments go caput, he will have me and you to blame.

M

Aurora:
Virtual Dreams in an Age of Transition! I like that name and I would like to be available for a podcast, so it is ok to share my information with them (but I rather you handle all business talk with them). Again, “virtual dreams” sounds very interesting but I don’t understand clearly what it means. How can a dream be virtual? Who dreams? Can machines (robots) dream? Are there collective dreams? Can we design a device that would project the images and sounds of our collective dreams, and broadcast it all over the world through the internet or space satellites?

I have been focusing on personal dreams, but maybe other forms of dreaming are possible, for example, that we collectively dream at a particular time and those dreams manifest as a period in history. Definitely, some terrible times in history could be the projection of a collective nightmare. But then, could we learn to collectively dream peaceful, humane and happier dreams? Maybe once that is achieved, we would be able to communicate more with other living beings on this planet (a tree, for example) or with entities from other parts of the universe.  Could we train ourselves to access those entities through the dream state?

I used to see a beautiful tree in one of the patios of the buildings surrounding my apartment. When the breeze moved its branches and leaves, it sent a sensation that felt to me, in the ninth floor of my building, like a soothing, peaceful vibration (was that an “illusion”?) Then, the building (and the backyard) where the tree lived was going to be renovated, and the owners decided to cut the tree. From my window, I watched it being done; the woodcutters did it expertly and without hesitation. I cried, because it did not matter to the owner nor the workers the many years the tree was there, the children that played under it, the old men who rested their backs on its trunk, the birds who sang in its branches. Then I had another thought: in order to construct my building, the same was done with other trees so that I could have a place to live in. I got confused. I gather that this is happening at a big scale on the planet.

What are you going to do with all that “firewood” in your living room?

Aurora:
Max, I almost forgot to tell you that my friend Myrna once had a dream with a fish and a tree. She shared the dream with me, and I included it (with her comments) in my book, Dreams Emerging From the Ashes of the Storm (by the way, I am delighted that you like this book so much!). The dream I am talking about was translated into English by a famous translator, Nancy Ross. I am thinking that maybe it can be made into a song for the Seraphim. What do you think of that possibility? Here it is an updated version of the dream:

The House, the Fish and the Tree

I show my friend Sandra the house where I have been living for some time. It is round and it surrounds a huge tree; I don’t know if it’s a gigantic pine or a kapok tree. The trunk is a kapok tree, I think, but the branches look like the branches of a pine tree. The ceiling in the house is high and some of the branches that grow beneath it give a little shade to the interior, which I believe is the living room or the main area of the house. Venetian blinds hanging on the wooden walls let light and fresh air inside and a round hole in the roof allows the trunk to go above the house. The color green is everywhere even though the floor is gray, made from cement tiles; the walls of the house were painted chartreuse. We can see the branches outside, but like in the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, the crown is lost in the clouds and we can’t see it. Sandra shows me, worried, how the roots have raised some of the tiles near her and how in the cracks a little green grass is growing. I am not concerned and I tell her that it doesn’t bother me; it doesn’t matter to me that there are cracked tiles and that the grass is growing there. I tell her it’s important to build houses that integrate nature. Inside it was fresh and somewhat humid; you could feel a lot of oxygen in the air.

Sandra tells me she has a surprise for me. I sit down near a dining room table to wait for her. It’s a room like the one in her house or the house of my childhood in my hometown. She brings me a clear glass vase with a wide mouth. A gold fish with a wide tail is inside! It swims around and with its tail moves the water from one side to the other. I look at it and all of a sudden it starts to turn an iridescent peacock blue and the water reflects its color. We admire it, delighted at the transformation and then we see how it changes from blue to phosphorescent orange-red. Beautiful! Then, cut to the future, and I see myself serving food to some friends and with slight horror I see that on an oval serving platter, is a baked fish.

Later on, upon awakening, I thought that the house in this dream reminded me of the house where I was born, with open spaces at the top of the walls which face the terrace so that the air could circulate. I liked seeing the fish. Its colors were very vibrant and my sign is Pisces. I am so happy that I am a vegetarian! (At least for the time being). Actually the fish reminded me of something that happened about twenty years ago, when I lived on Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn and I had my fish tank with goldfishes and catfish. One night I dreamed that my room was on the bottom of the sea and an enormous goldfish navigated through the currents and it wrote me a message in golden letters like the ones that blimps leave in the sky. The message was in English: Help me! Help me! I woke up but I don’t think I got up out of bed. I told myself: “In the morning I will check the fish tank and I’ll change the water.” The next day, I went to the living room and the largest goldfish was floating dead in the tank. I realized then that it had been trying to send me a message or I had sensed its consciousness. Until this day, I feel a weight in my chest every time that I think about this. I ignored its cry for help; I didn’t respond in time!

Today Sandra calls me to tell me she’s reading Spheres 3, by Peter Sloterdijk and that this author said in the future nature won’t exist as we now know it. That is to say nature won’t exist separate from human beings who will have to learn to protect their environment by building cities like greenhouses, sealed environments where human life and nature will be artificially protected from air pollution that I imagine to be an imperceptible rain of toxic substances and microchip particles (or simply because there’s no longer any air outside.) Sandra is horrified by his vision; I am excited that he imagines a future, any kind of future. I tell her my dream enthusiastically. I can tell on the phone that she is smiling. When I describe the colors of the fish she says, ‘how pretty;’ but I understand that the volumes of Sloterdijk’s philosophy are thick and complex. How can they be linked with my nocturnal journeys?

I recall now, less optimistically, the fish and birds in the seas, bathed in oil from the spills, not being able to breathe. With what pillows will we be able to silence their pleas in our dreams?

There’s also the tree, the center post in the house. I ask myself if it doesn’t evoke my nostalgia for the archetypal tree, the Tree of Life or the tree where the Buddha attained enlightenment. Or maybe it’s only a palliative for the blues of heartbreak: the longing for an axis, center and anchor for life. A tree that shelters me. 

Max:
My Dearest Most Generous Most Humble Greatest Dreamer,

I think Myrna's dream would make a hit song. But maybe we shouldn't get so far ahead of ourselves. Right now it is you that Seraphim wants to work with. You reciting a dream and they being your celestial chorus. They might have some suggestions on how to present the dream, maybe even make a few changes. They said nothing to me about what they have in mind. They have a great reputation about respecting the artists they work with as well as the crew that records their songs and works their gigs. Up the line maybe Myrna can become part of it. I do love her. And she might be my all-time second most favorite dreamer but I think we should wait. Though maybe if you can work on a song together: Merging Dreams Keep Bursting into Song. But still, but still I think we should wait. One thing at a time. Please don't tell Myrna about what I have said here. Damn. I hate saying no to any suggestion from you. My motto is always to go where Aurora's energy takes you. Okay, yes, Myrna's dream would make a great song. I know it would. Right after your performance we can suggest it.

Once you and Seraphim decide on what you are going to do I will work out the financial details with them.

As for the firewood I have no idea what to do with it. Maybe donate some of it to the Unitarian Church in town. They have a big fireplace and do events there even in the dead of winter.
Max

Aurora:
Agreed. I don’t think that we should spread ourselves too much either. Myrna’s dreams sometimes feel like an echo of my own dreams, though. Weird. Anyway, a possible song for the Seraphim could be:

I dream of this creature
gasping gasping for air
I dream of this creature
A large goldfish?
Reaching out to me, to us
I dream of this creature
Breaking through the surface
Leaving its poisoned home
How will I lend it a hand
How can I pull myself from this abyss
Wake up wake up from the illusion
Jump into his dream
Is this creature me, you?
I dream of this creature
That I embrace in the waters
A creature
Calling to us
Over seaweed and distant stars
Is this creature me, you?
Calling out to us
I dream of this creature
I dream of this creature
I dream

Max:
A,

Great news! Heard back from the Seraphim within a half hour of sending the poem. They said they are already working on the music and playing around with word patterns for the chorus. I gave them your contact info. They said they will get in touch soon.

Will talk to their agent Raul once you guys connect.

Tell me when you hear from them. 

Like I always say for every celestial dreamer there is an earthly artist there to channel their voice. Actually it really is Milagros who always says that. Now I know what she is getting at.

I have a real good feeling about this.

Max

Aurora:
I thought about the Seraphim and although I like their music and I wrote the lyrics for a possible song, I am concerned about attending concerts in a pandemic. My friend Myrna says that in her country, the rate of people getting sick after attending concerts is very high. Her nephew and his son tested positive and the son lost ten days of college because he was not allowed in the classroom due to the test results. So discouraging! Myrna's nephew is almost asymptomatic, but his son was quite sick for a few days. Both of them are still testing positive, after 10 days of exposure.

I am losing confidence in what I can or should do at this time. I know that one side of this issue with the Seraphim is the success of the business, but at times, I feel that I need to reboot or encourage myself to go on. Last night, I dreamt that I was looking for a doctor to examine my hand, and I could not find the appropriate one or the laboratory that would do a CT scan of the hand. I am aware that my hand now hurts due to arthritis, but I believe the dream is also symbolic, since it is the hand with which I write. 

A few nights ago, I was sleeping and a great noise in the apartment above my apartment woke me up. I was amazed at how loud it was, but after opening my eyes, I realized the noise was in my dream! I know that noises that wake me up but do not exist in my "reality" (are a dream) have a meaning. For example, I have heard the shuffling of papers in my bedroom while sleeping, and when I wake up, the sound stops. Also, until some years ago, when somebody in my family or close to me was going to die or was very ill, I used to hear someone ringing my bell or knocking the door of my apartment at 3:00 or 4:00 am. Since it woke me up, I used to go to the door to see who was ringing, but there was no one there. I also checked the hallway, and it was empty. After some years like this, I stopped getting up when I heard the bell or the knocking in the middle of the night, and I stayed in bed for a little while, wondering who was about to die; but this did not help, because it was often a surprise; somebody I didn't expect. Since I stopped getting up to find out who is ringing my bell, the incidents have decreased and now I can say they pretty much stopped.

I remember that my mother once told me that when a cousin of hers died one night in an accident far from her town, a great noise like a lightning or a thunderbolt hit the roof of the house and woke up the whole family at the same hour that he died. She said it felt like the roof was broken into pieces. In the morning, they learned about the cousin's death. He was driving his car late at night, and maybe because he fell asleep, had a car accident (hit a tree) and died on the spot. My mother was very fond of her cousin, and repeated the story to me many times. I could hear in her voice that she was more concerned (sad) with her cousin's death, and paid little mind to the phenomena. I guess she felt the loud noise was an expression of the gravity of what was happening. Maybe she thought these things are normal, and the important part was that they lost their family member. I realized that for my family, there was no division between real, unreal or surreal, including their interpretations. Everything was part of a big continuum. To me, that way of thinking or living expands the scope of the universe in which we exist.

I don't know why I am sharing these experiences now. Maybe I’m re-convincing myself of the value of dreaming (and writing) in the present state of the world, or of my personal life. Sorry, sorry, Max; I know that I am not being encouraging here. Maybe I need now a tree that shelters me (us?), and there are few trees left because we cut them, too.

If you think it is appropriate, tomorrow I will try to contact the Seraphim to thank them for liking my poem-song (and leave the rest to you). What I wrote above may just be today's mood.

Max:
Darling Aurora,

I tremble for us all.

So many people seem to think the pandemic is over. I don't know. People are still getting sick. But I guess life needs to go on.

Still cutting a record with Seraphim is one thing, winding up dead with the angels is another thing.

Okay. Look. I would just tell them what you are feeling. Work on the song with them. Worse comes to worse, someone else will read your lines on stage. Still I don't think you even begin to understand what a big draw you are. So you not being on stage would be a giant comedown. But still. Also if not at a live performance you might be able to record the song at the studio. Everyone tested and boosted. Look, I don't want to push you. God forbid you got sick. I could never live with myself. Again, just talk with them. 

And see what you can come up with.

Like I always say no dream is worth dying for but without dreams what is life worth living for.

Hang in there.

Max

Max:
Dear Aurora,

The heat here is unbearable. My neighbor's yard has turned yellow.

I keep reading how dreams have turned into ancient memories and just fell out of people's lives in parts of Asia. How could that happen? I don't know how reliable those accounts are. But just the thought that could happen is not a happy one.

Max

Aurora:
Dear Max,

It is really very hot. My breathing gets affected. I have the AC unit on and still need a paper fan to stay a little cool. I read that eruptions of volcanoes in several parts of the world are contributing to the rising temperatures. Even the Tigris and the Euphrates are drying up. However, a friend of mine visiting Puerto Rico now says it is the coolest August he has ever experienced in the Caribbean. All this is making me think about what the Maya predicted ―and I hear other people talk about it― that we (humanity) are entering the 6th Mass Extinction. I don’t know much about these things, and frankly, I try not to pay much attention to all that gloom. Except when unusual things that affect me directly (like this heat wave), hit me.

You seem to link the climate phenomena to people losing their dreaming capacity. If we are in this mass extinction business, and we stop dreaming altogether, 1/3 of the life of all humans is lost. On average, humans tend to (or should) sleep 7-8 hours a day. You see, scientists say we always dream, even if we don’t always remember our dreams because everyday responsibilities (and, I would add, social media distractions) get in the way of focusing on dreaming. If we lose this innate capacity to dream, and hence we do not exist in that dimension anymore, could this be the beginning of mass extinction? On another note, some recent studies state that during the pandemic, more people are having intense dreams that are almost lucid dreaming. It is all very confusing. Who knows what the truth is?

I used to wake up at 3 or 4am, and I remembered my dreams. This week I saw a YouTube about dreaming that says that the veil (between dimensions) is very thin at those hours. Veil or not, I used to be startled by the intensity and strangeness of my dreams at those hours, and when I woke up, I meditated on them and often wrote them down. Since back then I was studying in college and not working, I could spend most of the next morning walking around like in a daze, trying to remember all the details of the dreams (and their possible meaning), trying to solve the puzzle. Sometimes a poem was all I could manage to produce about a dream. Even though I was not sure people would understand what I was talking about, I considered that my effort was productive. Now I go to bed so late that at 3-4am I am sound asleep. Then, in the morning, I can only remember a confused mixture of fragments of the last dreams of the night, feelings, and intuitions about their meaning. And then the day takes over and I forget most of my nocturnal journeys. So you see, I may be entering “extinction,” too! lol

Yesterday morning I remembered dreaming that I was visiting a doctor who, after examining me, asked me why, if I had been told I had a certain health issue needing an operation, I had not paid any mind to it. She seemed to be gently scolding me. The doctor was examining my foot (I can’t remember if it was my left or right foot), but I felt she was also addressing my stomach. I was concerned when I woke up. But then, the dream could be psychological debris from my accident, which I may have not fully processed. Also, feet are a symbol of moving forward. At these times, I wonder. Where to? How?

I think to stop dreaming is a loss. Dreams can make us aware of what we feel or need. And sometimes, if we allow them, they could help us to discern our path.

Aurora

PS:

I discovered that the 6th Mass Extinction prediction by the Maya is not true, it is fake. I will write to you shortly about this.

Max:
My Dearest Aurora,

When I wake up at night it usually is to shuffle my way to the toilet. Try not to fully wake up. So I am in a semi-sleep state. 

As I am writing I just heard that it is all a big hoax, greed running rampant. Big pharma trying to convince a section of Asia that they were no longer dreaming. That what they thought were dreams were just memories of past dreams. And with a pill they would be able to dream again. And no dreams would ever be dull dreams, only vivid dreams. The market research they cited was totally bogus.  They were just claiming that people weren't dreaming. People weren't in any way buying it.

I should have known better. How could any drug induce dreams remotely as vivid as yours? But it's worse than that. Trying to convince others that their dreams aren't real is as low as it gets.

We have to create a new webpage for people to go to.

DON'T LET BIG PHARMA
TELL YOU THAT YOUR DREAMS 
AREN'T REAL
DREAM WITH AURORA
POST YOUR DREAMS HERE

Love you forever,

Max

Aurora:
Dear Max,

A big marketing hoax! Were you too a victim of fake information? Oh, well…. However, I think that in my case, it is a little more complicated than fake information, as I will share here.

Max, are you a dream activist now? The website about dreams you suggest is interesting. I will think about it; I don’t know. Just to keep up with what is really happening is exhausting.

And then, about the 6th Mass Extinction I mentioned in my last email to you:

According to experts in the field, the Maya never predicted that we will have a mass extinction. The Mayan calendar stated that 2012 was the ending of a 5,126 year old cycle, which just marks the end of one period of creation and the beginning of another. According to a professor, we are just projecting our worries onto the Maya.

So the news about a 6th Mass Extinction was another hoax? It seems so.

But then, hold your horses (or should I say “Slow down your sports car?”)

Because, after feeling relaxed, convinced that we humans are going to live forever, a recent report has been called to my attention: “Worried about Earth’s future? Well, the outlook is worse than even scientists can grasp” (2021,) authored by 17 leading scientists from several universities and organizations. What the paper conveys is quite sobering, Max. They offer a lot of factual information concerning many issues: energy consumption resulting from human population growth (set to reach 10 billion by 2050), fossil fuels, climate change, environmental pollution, etc. They also point to government denial, the rise of political populist leaders with anti-environment agendas, financed disinformation campaigns, unwillingness of many businesses to shift investments, and just plain ignorant human behavior. It is interesting that among their recommendations, one concerns women: to make more efforts to educate and empower them across the world (including giving women more control over family planning!) Finally, the authors point out that fellow scientists and experts in the pertinent fields should summon the courage to state the truth publicly. They emphasize that “anything else would be at best misleading and at worst, potentially lethal.”

It is also interesting that the authors understand that there is a psychological component in acknowledging an environmental crisis. It is what they call “the human optimism bias – thinking bad things are more likely to befall others than yourself.” This is completely opposite to the “projection of fears” business described before!! Or do we do both?

In other words, another mass extinction was not predicted by the Maya, but the possibility of it occurring may indeed happen if we keep disregarding the effects we have on the environment and our own lives.

Cool. Maybe we should indeed consider this situation and not look away.

Max, I must say that I greatly appreciate your encouraging me to dream and share my dreams, although I also understand that you are in this to make a profit. But your efforts, for me, may serve a larger purpose, like having a glimpse in dreams at our options (or what we wish to create).

I had two dreams that I had years ago, and are still puzzling to me. I think I will entitle them “Possible World 1,” and “Possible World 2.” I will share them with you shortly.

Aurora

Max: 

My Beautiful Great Tentative Dreamer,

I long for the time when all you needed to do was dream and write it down and we would get it published and all those people would just line up at bookstores and buy them. And then read them to each other in person or on the phone.

But now. So much pseudo everything. No one knows what is real, what isn't real.

But when we present your dreams everyone can tell immediately they aren't knockoffs. That they are the real deal. People know you. They trust you. But now they can't even be sure that you are you. I am wrong. They can tell immediately. There is nothing like those dreams of yours. No machine can reproduce them. No counterfeiter can even begin to replicate your magic.

Well things do seem really bad these days. You wouldn't know it but even Max gets down from time to time. I try my best not to show it.

But like I always say when things are at their darkest dreams are the flashlights we need to help guide us to better times.

Max

Aurora:
Dear Max,

It’s OK to show you are down whenever you are feeling that way, Max. We all have our days. But now, cheer up, because positive things are happening in the world, too. We need all the good energy we can gather and a keen, hopeful vision to uplift others (and make some money, too).

I considered your proposition of a webpage where anyone could post their dream to refute the fallacy that people have stopped dreaming. I actually think it is a great idea! I already received letters and emails from people sharing their dreams with me. For sure many may be too busy and cannot spend too much time remembering their dreams, but I don’t think they have stopped dreaming altogether.  A webpage where the ones whose dreams are too vivid to forget can post them will be a good way to demonstrate the ability of all people to dream. It will also keep the relevance of that world alive.

My initial hesitation was about the level of commitment and work involved. I think we have to make sure such a platform is not abused, since some people could write made-up dreams with the intention of deceiving or offending the readers. I wouldn’t want anybody to get hurt. But then, the creative possibilities of a dream webpage are so enticing! You are a genius! How do we start? What is expected of me? You are the Agent here, so please let me know what is the best way to proceed (I will always say if I agree and if I can do it, anyway!).

Also, here are the two dreams―possible Earth’s options―I promised earlier (a third one will be forthcoming later). For now, I will leave the titles the dreams had when I wrote them.

Possible World 1: The Morning After

I wake up in a big bed, with plenty of pastel colored sheets, maybe peach or yellow. I am in a room with no walls, which appears to be the top of a mountain. There are magnificent landscapes all around me: the sun rises behind hills and/or mountains that stretch across a panoramic view, from left to right. Its light bathes a beautiful landscape, with different shades of green in the vegetation and white cities among the mountains. The sky is spectacular, with blue, white and orange tones. I see everything from a considerable distance; it is a view like those seen from a high road in the interior of Puerto Rico, or from a mountain in Central America. I sit and watch the scene, fascinated. I contemplate it all for a long time, grateful for this gift.

Possible World 1I: More About Dragons

The world had ended. The Earth was the dry skin of a sick giant. All the lowlands were dry; the fields were dry; the streets were broken crusts of an old wound. At my side some people joined us in tears; we walked to a great rock on a mountain like a nut on an index finger. We did not want to leave; we looked at the red earth, dazed. I remembered the formula for the speed of light and with a rock wrote it down on the wall of our refuge.

The tyrannosauruses reappeared. The rock shook with the immensity of their cries. The next day dawned, and a jeep with some people grew closer to the infinite flaming sky as the monster appeared on the other side, with its short legs and ivory teeth.  Determined to save the ones in the jeep we ran, climbed down, but it was already there.

The jeep was a blue suitcase. The creature opened it and there were two birds inside. One was a swan like Leda’s, which was able to flee when transformed into a multitude. A mighty eagle, white on brown, rose with a piercing look. And then in one chomp the other one ate its head.

Aurora

Max:
Aurora, Aurora, Aurora,

Two such dreams! Who but you could catch all of everything there is to catch in just two dreams. And a third? Even more of everything. I can't wait to read it.

These dreams would make the perfect lead in on our new webpage. But I think webpages might be a thing of the past. So the dreams might be part of something very different than a webpage.

I ran the idea by my niece who is studying dream transformations as we transition into a new age. You know she grew up with your dreams and says they pulled her through some very dark times. She told me there is a whole new industry emerging with breathtaking innovations that can enter dream spaces and surface them in ways like never before. I didn't understand a word she said. But I haven't seen her this excited about anything for a long time. Her enthusiasm is contagious. She says she will talk to her friends at school and get back to me. At worst we can create our webpage. I think webpages are still far from being obsolete.

But like I always say dreams that remain stagnant are no dreams at all. By the way my niece said to make sure I say hello and to tell you how important you are to her.

Max

Aurora:
Dear Max,

I think that the innovations your niece is talking about may be an extension of VR Headsets and that could be interesting. My daughter spends a lot of time with it, gesticulating and moving around with her eyes immersed in those devices. Once in a while, when she visits, she brings them for me to try/play with, and it is really interesting. However, at times what you see with them looks too "virtual," meaning an artificial simulation. In those instances, I would rather like to experience something like the interactive holographic projections, such as the holodeck that they show in some of my favorite Sci-Fi series. Imagine creating fully immersive protonic playgrounds of your dreams, where you go whenever you feel like visiting a particular one or exploring possible time lines or alternative paths! I think that could be fun!

Please keep me posted as to what your niece finds out and whether it would be financially worthwhile investing in a webpage.

And, here is a third Earth’s option dream! I have some ideas as to what it implies and will share them soon.

Possible World III: Flight 228

I am inside an airplane; I don't know if I am alone; maybe with my daughter. There are other passengers. The plane has not taken off; there seems to be a malfunction. The exit door opens. I think about it for a few seconds. I decide to leave. I grab my work bag where I was carrying part of my luggage, and I quickly get out of the plane. My daughter—or maybe she's my doppelganger—follows me outside. It is a tropical site, with lots of green vegetation. The aircraft appears to be at the end of a runway, or maybe it is an emergency runway or short runway. The site may be Puerto Rico, but it also looks like Central America. It can be a jungle—the bushes have large, green, shiny leaves; it’s humid and hot.

I decide to walk away from the plane, which means going around it to leave it behind, because you can't go forward. Almost as I pass the right side of it, there's an explosion inside—I don't feel it, but the plane looks a bit banged up, it wobbles and the left wing tilts. The left wing lowers and the plane turns completely on that side; the wing touches the ground, close to me. I quicken my pace and looking back I see a lot of gray smoke coming out of the plane, large amounts rising like a building. In fact, the plane seems to be inside a glass building and the smoke rises through the center and comes out everywhere. It may be similar to the scene that the people who escaped the Twin Towers’ bombing years ago might have seen when they turned their faces to look back; or the way the smoke would look if the man who recently stole a plane and threatened to crash it into a city had actually done it. I was glad I got out of this plane.

The jungle is transformed into a city of skyscrapers and the plane has taken off. The plane looks like the dome of a building; At times it seems to me a triangular structure and others a flying saucer. But it does not reach its full height, it falls and it’s coming in our direction. There is no time to run. It crashes and the explosion reaches me. I feel the explosion in front of me like a ball of energy or fire that comes at me and blows me away. I feel like everything explodes and my chest explodes and it's one of the deepest feelings I've ever had, I am blown away. There is no pain, just the greatest impact that passes over me or through me, through all my pores and all my cells and blOws me aaaaaway. I know it was in my heart that I felt it the most but not in the physical sense; it was as if my conscience had been blown away.

Everything is dark; pitch black. I keep my eyes (do I have eyes?) closed. I am afraid to open them. I tell myself—now when I open them I will see what those who die see: a long dark tunnel and at the end a light. I open them bit by bit and to my amazement, the world is there—the green, shimmering, lush vegetation, the clear sunny sky, the buildings intact. Nothing has disappeared and I am alive. Quietly, I wonder what has happened.

After reading some pages on the internet that present spiritual lessons, I notice that they say: The world you think you perceive is not real. In truth, there is no such world.

Max:
Aurora, Aurora , my dear friend Aurora, who can dream dreams never before imagined, igniting others to dream dreams that light up all the realms out there.

Nothing escapes you. No realm of existence nor states of being can silence you. Realms? States of being? What am I talking about? I feel unhinged. Want to get back to how it was. You dream. I find ways for us to share those dreams with the world. Just normal anxiety. Normal worries. But not questioning everything. How where when here now then when then how where. I never remember my dreams. Only once or twice every decade maybe a fragment of a dream. So what dreams are there to revisit? This is not like me. Doubting. Questioning. Maybe I do have dreams buried deep within my memory bank. And new technologies can surface them. But how would I know they had once really been my dreams and not just manufactured illusions.

I am all confused. I never thought about things like this before. I'll say it again. You did the dreaming. I found ways for us to share those dreams with the world. I was very content with that. But maybe all this itself is one big dream.

Max and Aurora are the dream. And somewhere out there someone is dreaming us? 

I'm going out for a walk.

In whatever realms we exist, my love for you is constant. That much I know for sure.

Max

Max:
Aurora,

I don't know what's happening to me. I rarely dream. But last night I dreamt I was a donkey on a cloud taking selfies, then I was a tsunami looking for an ocean, then I wound up on the stage singing at the Grand Ole Opry. You were on stage with me filming it all. The audience started chanting U.S.A., U.S.A. I don't know what any of it means. Maybe it was just a dream. Nothing more.

But still like I have always said there is never a "just" about a dream. 

Max

Aurora:
Max,

This time I am lost; I do not understand your dream enough to offer a sensible insight into its meaning. Nevertheless, I can try some ideas.

It seems you perceive that we are One, we are everything, there is no separation between organic and inorganic, humans, vegetables, minerals and animals, and other possibilities. Maybe the physical form and personality we are in now is temporary, and it can change at any given moment. This is very interesting! Is the separation or distinction between you and me and a table or a tree a matter of a temporary (and possibly, therefore, malleable) configuration of atoms at a given point in time and space? Can we shape shift? If so, what happens when we do? In the case of assuming the physical form of a tree, for example, does our consciousness change too, and become the consciousness of a tree? In the case of a human, is the purpose of dreaming, reincarnating, or undergoing deep changes in our present life to experience all the possibilities of existing (man, woman, androgynous, non-physical, black, white, yellow, red, extraterrestrial) and to learn from it? Maybe the purpose of life is to learn that what truly exists is One experiencing Itself as many.

The stage in your dream is important. Maybe, according to the above, there is no fixed, unmovable “reality." Everything is like a play (or a dream). Is theater a representation of life or a proposition of “life”? Is life like theater, a "manufactured illusion"? Who creates this illusion? I think it is us. We may be the creators who create everything we experience, and are barely aware of our capacity.  Also, it seems that you like been seen; there are performers and an audience in your dream (maybe we are both). You may like changing personalities or assuming another role, like actors do when performing a character. But, what is the Grand Ole Opry? Is it a “USA” cultural reference that I don’t know about because I was raised in another culture? I cannot figure out this part.

And, yes, I agree: there is never a “just” about dreams.

And, yes, I say: Maybe exploring a dream is equivalent to exploring the nature of existence.

So Max, dream on!

But, what about a business plan, too?

Max:
Aurora,

Remember I told you about Jake Fox the great banjo player I met on Metro North who told me that your dreams pulled his son out of a massive depression? He catapulted to fame after performing at The Grand Ole Opry. For country musicians, the Opry is like Carnegie Hall. The Metropolitan Opera House and Yankee Stadium all rolled into one. It is in Nashville, Tennessee. Jake told me you have many fans among country musicians. He was such a nice guy.

As for a business plan. Mostly it has been gut instinct. I always feel things out. I guess some part of my mind was somewhat methodical in some “all of over the place” sort of way. But no longer will I rely on my gut. My dreams will guide me from now on. In my last dream there was a pile of money over to one side of a huge crowded street, everyone was walking around it as if it were a dead body, on the other side of the street was a huge field made of rocks where a thousand clowns were dancing. And there I was floating above it all. I don't understand one bit of it. So how am I going to let my dreams guide my business decisions? It is all so confusing. I never thought that me Max could be even a minor league dreamer. Well here I am brand new to it all. SCREW REALITY. Reality is there to tame us and control us and limit the possibility of transcendence, oh how I love using that word now that I have a glimpse of what it means. I am getting carried away. Even a tiny glimpse into the type of dream worlds you inhabit is exhilarating. I need to find some balance. Become non-attached, finally I understand what non-attached means, something you always do so well. I have to learn not to be carried away. Get overexcited. Non-attached. Yes that is it. That's what needs to happen. That's what I need to learn how to be.

Yours forever,

 Max

Max:
Aurora,

You won't believe this. I just heard. The Dream New Deal has opened up a branch in Tunisia. They're having a dream festival.

They've already translated some of your dreams into Arabic from French. What people keep telling me is that French was maybe the best of all the translations. They're having overlapping dream duets in French and Arabic with original music.

Anytime your books get translated I learn about some other country. Not that I never heard of Tunisia. But still….

They would love it if you could be there. But they are short on money. So what's new?

Maybe we can get the Guardian to pay for your trip. It would be great for it to be part of the series of documentaries they are doing to publicize their new dream section. It has been slow going but they keep telling me the launch will happen soon.

Yours as always,

Max

Aurora:
Wow, Max! That is really encouraging! I wonder what my dreams will sound like in those languages, particularly in French and Arabic. I would love to attend the Dream Festival. Maybe we can do a GoFundMe, if no company or organization is willing to pay for our trip now. I am not too good at this fundraising business, but since so far many of your proposals have been successful, probably this one will be, too. Thank you for finding out about this news and having the enthusiasm to work on making it possible!

I received this news when I was going to write to you about your last text, in which you state that you would like to inhabit the dream worlds and that you wanted to ditch reality because it controls us. I want to tell you that reality is important too, because it is a projection of our individual and collective desires, hopes (fears, too), expectations and ideas. You cannot ditch reality, Max! The dream world just opens other avenues, like rooms in secluded parts of a mansion. Right now, we may soon go on a trip to a festival on the other side of the world. That would be considered "reality" and it is exciting!

Nevertheless, I understand that my gift is to dream. Also, to let other people know that they have that capacity as well and entice them to be curious as to what is in those rooms that they have not explored.

Talking about rooms and doors, I had two dreams the other day that are both pleasant and a little bit scary. I will write about them soon.

Aurora:
So, Max, this is one of the two dreams I told you about:

The Water Door

It is a rock in the middle of the waters, with two perfectly symmetrical smooth protuberances. From the ship, we know that both mounds will collapse and the island will disappear at some point in the near future. Some small surface landslides are already noticeable.

I am a male diver and I drop into the water to explore the little island before it disappears. For some reason I try to investigate the foundations under water. I see a door and when I push it, part of the inner enclosure is above the water level. I walk until I am completely out of the water and enter a warm, lighted room. In some prominent place there is a table with lamps or a lot of light, and good quality drawing papers, containers with fine brushes for painting, and colored pencils for drawing. Everything is arranged as if waiting for someone to create art. I take off my diving gear and without a moment's hesitation I sit down to draw. Now I see myself, a corpulent man, with a beard of several days, shirtless, hairy chest. I begin to paint.

Behind me, most likely to the right, a door opens from what looks like an elevator, or perhaps the rustic door of an entrance carved into the rock. Would it be through that door that I arrived at the enclosure?

A slightly chubby woman walks out of the door with a friendly look on her face. Perhaps she is pleased that I, as a visitor, am using the utensils and materials that she arranged on the table. Perhaps they were there for a long time, waiting for someone to use them. The woman wears a dress made of seaweed and sargasso; a little bit slimy. Her skin is milky white, and her hair is quite long; a bright lava-red mane. I don't remember what happened next.

I'm on my way back, through the waters. I swim towards the boat but I have to deal with a net that fishermen have put out to catch fish. One of the strands of the net wraps around my neck slightly, but I manage to pull it over my head and continue swimming away from the island, towards the boat that awaits me somewhere on the surface.

Upon waking up, I was surprised at how quick and confident the man was when he entered the room and decided to sit down and draw. It was an inexplicable impulse.

I have always been attracted to art, and used to draw, but instead of continuing, I married a talented painter and didn't paint myself. Am I now ready for another stage of my life?

The woman in my dream is familiar to me. She resembles a Buddhist that used to practice at the time when I was living in Brooklyn more than two decades ago. The woman I remember was also very white, stocky, with fiery red hair. I think I dreamed of her (or a similar person) before, at a difficult time of my life. She was a dreamer who practiced dreaming. I dreamed that she saw me in her dreams and tried to help me.

For some reason, I thought the woman in my dream was a sort of mermaid, and when looking up red haired mermaids, I found the term rusalska (whose hair is green or light brown). According to some sources, for pagan Slavic people, the rusalski or rusalska resembled mermaids and were seen as benevolent beings linked with water and fertility (giving life-giving moisture to the fields and thus nurturing the crops). In the 19th-century, however, this changed, and the rusalska were considered dangerous entities; mostly the soul of a young woman who had died (by suicide due to an unhappy marriage, or who had been killed by her husband or lover) in or near a river or a lake, and who would come back to haunt that waterway. Physically beautiful, they would lure men to the waters and drown them with their long hair. Not all were malevolent spirits, however. If avenged, they would be allowed to die in peace.

In my dream, the long cord around the diver’s neck pulling him back could have been a scary item, but it wasn't. It was easy for the diver to just pull the cord away from the body, lifting it over his head. If anything, I would associate the red-haired woman to water and fertility (creativity, the arts?), because my dream, overall, had a pleasant feeling to it. Maybe it is announcing a new stage in my life in which painting and creating art pieces could also express my dreams, or complement writing them up. I would consider this possibility. And, those pieces would be physical “reality,” Max. I guess.

Max:
Aurora my dear Aurora,

Oh to have your original artwork as part of the Aurora dream series is something to dream about for real. Magical colors. Straight from a dream. No one could ever just imagine colors like that. Let alone reproduce them in the ways that you do.

How about a series of workshops: Paint With Aurora. Your fans can create their own visions of what those dreams look like. I hear Paul McCartney has actually used some of your dreams as a prompt to paint a cover for his latest album. Maybe The Dream Museum can display not only your own art but the artwork of your fans and how they take in those dreams. And I bet Paul would just love to be part of it.

Going back to what's real and what's not real. Only a great dreamer doesn't have the need to put everything into a box. It's not always only this or that. I have one dream that I remember and I think I am some expert.

I just read that The Non Binary Dream Discourse is a course at NYU. It is all spinning and spinning. I am Max.

We'll talk soon.

Max

Aurora:
Ok, Max, the New Deal’s Dream Festival sounds great! It is such an opportunity to meet other dreamers and for you to make contact with organizations and companies that are interested in dream events. On another hand, I was not aware that my dreams have been translated into French and Arabic. Did the translators or publicists ask for your permission to use my material? For my part, I think that it is ok to translate my dreams, as long as they are not changed, manipulated or used with other purposes than to stimulate humans to explore and use their innate capacity to dream. How can we make sure of this?

Below is the dream I had after the one with the diver and the island that I shared last time. I wonder if this recent dream is connected to that one:

Home Door

Somebody rings my doorbell and, in order to answer, I walk through the narrow, short hallway of my apartment that goes to the entrance (the apartment seems to be the first one that I had many years ago in Brooklyn, near Ocean Avenue). It is cold and I wear a thick robe and a scarf around my neck.

I open the door a little bit and there is a woman in the empty hallway, very white and unknown to me. She is right there, too close for comfort, next to the door. The woman is barefooted, a little heavy or at least not thin. She is wearing a dress with several colors; maybe the design is with flowers, or long leaves, like those of the aquatic plants that grow in the bottom of the sea. Maybe it is green and orange. I only see half of her body, since I did not open the door fully. She tries to introduce her hand slowly in the space that was opened. Her energy does not feel negative to me, but I am frightened by her silence, appearance and gesture. I try to close the door but she pushes from the other side, with great force. It is as if the whole door is being pushed, from top to bottom.

I keep pushing to close the door, pressing with my whole body, and it is very difficult to do so. She says to me: “Look, behind you.” For a fraction of a second, I feel concerned as to what is behind me, but I also know that if I take the time to find out or am curious and turn my head to look, I would get distracted, lose strength, and be unable to resist the force pushing to open the door. I lean on the door with my whole body and begin raising my right hand to slide the horizontal metal bar that for some reason is on the upper side of the door above my head.

I wake up. I do not move in the bed, nor open my eyes. I feel it is important to complete my actions in the dream. I purposely go back to dreaming, or imagine myself in the dream again. I see myself in the same scene, leaning on the door to close it with my body. I give one last strong push, and lifting my right hand, I slide the bar to secure the closed door.

I wake up again, somewhat startled by the incident, but glad that I was able to close the door. I felt that as soon as I did it, the force pushing from the hallway stopped altogether. I did not have any more thoughts, and just got out of the bed.

The woman reminded me of the rusalska mermaids, and of the woman in the dream of the man painting on the island. I am convinced that once you enter a dreaming space, you may make a connection with entities in that realm who, afterwards, come to this realm or enter other dreams, looking for you to join them or be/act in the same manner. It is a process that reminds me, in some aspects, of phenomena in quantum physics when two subatomic particles (photons or electrons) become entangled, they remain connected even when separated by vast distances. In the dream realm, something similar to a sort of entanglement has happened to me before, especially while dreaming with outstanding people or persons that are meaningful to me, and also with mythological entities such as Maya or Hindu figures, or Egyptian gods and other African orishas. However, on those occasions, they always accept my options, and if I do not respond or I respectfully decline, they stop seeking me in dreams. The woman at the door seemed insistent, though. Maybe it depends on the entities’ level of vibration, I guess. This business of dreaming is not free of risks and dangers.

Despite feeling that in my dream, the decision of not turning my head back was the right one, later on I wondered if there was something behind me that I should have looked at.

Max:
Aurora,

I remember these lines from somewhere. Don't remember from where.

As I look back
I stumble on the log
placed in front of me

To look back or not look back. People have been debating that forever. Do you learn from the past or does it just tangle up the present. I used to just put my head down and keep moving ahead. My niece said you can never outrun your past. It is always there looming, informing, influencing everything you do. I said what do you know about the past? You are way too young to be such an expert. She said I sounded just like her mother. Always minimizing her experience, trying to infantilize her, making light of her pain, thinking it was cute when she fell in love, and her heartbreak was no different than any other young heartbreak and that she would get over it. It all just came pouring out of her. I said don't be so hard on us. That is just her mother's and my past talking. She said, do you always have to have the last word? And started laughing.

One more thing to be upset about. A few months ago I read that someone called the dirtiest man alive who hadn't bathed in sixty years was convinced by the villagers in Iran where he lived to get cleaned up for health reasons. I read this morning that he died.

No one can ever leave anything alone. Maybe he would have died anyway. But mess around with the balance of things. You never know what will get unraveled.

On another subject. I am still searching around for funds so you can go to Tunisia. I think the festival is too important for you to pass up.

Before I forget. Speaking of entanglements. Robert sent me a book by his friend Fred Kramer called, would you believe it, Entanglement. The lives of friends entangled over time. Past present future. Totally absorbing.

So many mysteries always there to unfold.

Will get back to you soon.

Max

Aurora:
I like your niece. She is quite spirited! Thinking about her words and yours, I remember the time of my life when I was living in the apartment of my last dream. I was often not happy, and felt unloved. There were good moments, too, but now I realize that it was also a difficult, crazy time. Should I look back to the guilt and pain of my past and linger there, morose and despondent, or should I focus on the present (so I don’t stumble on “the log” in front of me)? Is it possible to move into the future with expectations, and hopefully, wiser? Maybe the woman in the hallway represents fear. Maybe the dream is pointing to the need of closing that door. Will I be able to? Can we forgive others and forgive ourselves? Can we really move beyond our sufferings and shortcomings?

Aurora:
So Max, I went ahead, did my research on the New Deal’s Dream Festival, and I already reserved two plane tickets to attend the events for a whole week (7 days) in November! I hope that you accept this invitation. I did not wait for anybody to buy the tickets to this trip (maybe later I can apply to get funding for other expenses), because I wanted to offer you a gift for being such a diligent, resourceful and loyal agent. What do you say? Imagine it! We can explore a fascinating culture in a beautiful country! And, maybe we can even check art galleries or museums to inquire about a possible exhibition of a dream paintings series.

But first, I have another proposition. This is a monumental one, bigger than the trip to the Dream Festival. Get ready!

We can go to sleep at the same time tonight (11 PM?) in our respective homes, and will ourselves to dream of another world full of beauty, peace, creativity, adventure, in which our true, eternal and playful selves are materialized in a body we desire. We do not have to stay there forever: I need to come back and share with other people how to access those realms through dreaming, how to stay in the one of their choice at the moment, or to travel back and forth to this “reality” if they want to. Wouldn’t that be great? We can bring back feelings and experiences from the dream realm and plant them here in this dimension, like a seed of a magnificent tree that will grow and grow to reach the stars.

Also, we may choose to present the findings of our experience in the Dream Festival, or in a conference at The Dream Museum. We may even get invited to that NYU course that you mentioned earlier! The outcomes of our journey may expand the realms in which people live in the world today, adding new dimensions to their existence. I know you hardly remember your dreams, and there may be challenges to finding each other in the dream realm, but I think it is worth trying. Don’t you think so? To me it feels like an expedition, like climbing Mt. Everest or searching for El Dorado, or like the first time people went to the moon! No doubt it can be very exciting, to say the least. If you agree, find me in your dreams tonight, and even if we don’t immediately connect, keep looking for me, and I, Aurora, will be there for you and all our readers who dare to dream and remember their dreams.

One more thing:

It is interesting that your friend Robert shared with you just now that he received a book about the lives of friends entangled over time. I then started researching and also found several articles focusing on entanglements between humans and nonhumans…. However, I am interested in the aspect of the entanglement phenomena that is “spooky” to some people: there are no connections between entangled particles which are far from each other that could explain the phenomena away (“local hidden-variable theories”), such as, for example, that the particles send messages to each other at a speed greater than the speed of light. None! The latest experiments make clear that that is not the case. It is indeed a mystery that I believe is also key to dreaming.

Max:
Aurora,

God you are on fire. I've never heard you like this. You sound like my sister after a B Complex shot. There was no stopping her for a month.

To go to the festival sounds like a glorious idea. But who wants me there? These are real dreamers. Seriously real dreamers. Well I know. Something is changing in me. Max the Dreamer at your disposal. Just kidding. Maybe not just kidding. I can really feel something changing in me. Who would have thought that could happen.

Let's not worry about the translations. I think it is all good. It keeps the dreams circulating in various guises in various forms. The languages themselves add their own magical dimensions to how they are received. Tunisia is going through its own serious changes. And we have to support our fellow dreamers. There are those there, like here, who think dream realms are subversive. And they have to be clamped down on.

Now to your suggestions. For us to enter into each other's dreams. That is so advanced. So radical. Radical even for veteran dreamers. Give me a week. I think I will be ready by then.

How about next Thursday or Friday?

Oh God what am I agreeing to? If either of those days is okay, let's go for it. Like I just told my niece on the phone, if you can't dream with Aurora who will you ever be able to dream with?

Max

Aurora:

Meeting in Dreams

I fall asleep very quickly after meditating for some time in preparation for our journey.

I see two trees with white flowers, and near them birds fly in the sky. To the left is a sort of big orange rock with what seems to be a small door. Where will it lead? I now hear some sounds of wings or things moving between the leaves that I cannot identify. It is somewhat warm and humid, but in a pleasant manner, and I can see patches of a blue sky above. I am wearing pants and I have a backpack. I grab my cell phone, but then I remember that there is no one to call here.  I stay still for a few seconds and remember that I am there to meet Max! I look around, searching for his familiar face. Maybe I entered this dreaming space first; maybe he is nearby. I decide to speak, and ask in a tentative tone, 

―Max! Where are you, Max? ... Max?

Max:
Aurora, Aurora. Am I in the right dream? A swamp and then a playground then the basement of something like a tenement building. There is music somewhere. What is that music. Strange music different from anything I ever heard before.

This is all new to me. Am I in the right dream? Where are you? Aurora. Where are you? Is that you?

END

We gratefully appreciate Chris Brandt and Bob Perron for kindly proofreading our story. And thank you Bob for opening up this space for it to appear.

Robert Roth is the author of Book of Pieces, Health Proxy, Transatlanticism: New York--Copenhagen (written with Jens Magnussen) and No End in Sight. Robert is also co-creator of And Then magazine. And over the last number of years he has created a series of YouTube videos with Hendrik van Oordt and Lotte van den Dikkenberg-Methorst.

Myrna Nieves was director for twenty years of the Boricua College Winter Poetry Series, and is a cofounder of 7 Women in Movement, a collective of artists. She has published the books Libreta de sueños (narraciones), Viaje a la lluvia: poemas, Another Version of Hansel and Gretel, El Caribe: Paraíso y Paradoja, Breaking Ground: Anthology of Puerto Rican Women Writers in New York, and is coauthor of Tripartita: Earth, Dreams, Powers. She is a curator for the magazine And Then and Hispanic Editor for Home Planet News online. Nieves received a PEN Club Award for Short Stories (Puerto Rico,1998) and a Raul Julia Award for Writer and Educator (New York, 2019). She holds a BA from the University of Puerto Rico, an MA from Columbia University and a PhD from New York University.

Zaadia Colón is an experimental artist. She was raised in Prospect Park South in Brooklyn and spent her teenage years in Williamsburg. Her artwork has appeared in the magazines And Then and Home Planet News, and in YouTube collaborations with Hendrik Van Oordt and Robert Roth. Her paintings have been exhibited at the Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN), Taller Boricua, Artspace PS109, Boricua College, and the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater in Manhattan (individual exhibition). Zaadia studied at Stony Brook SUNY where she received a BS in Mathematics with a minor in Anthropology. She obtained a Master’s Degree in TESOL at Boricua College. She studied at The Parsons School for Fashion Design; and also studied art with her father, the late artist Rafael Colón Morales. For several years, she worked in the fashion industry at Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. She now teaches Mathematics at a high school in Queens. Zaadia is a cofounder of the collective of artists 7 Women in Movement.