27 Mar 2025
Dream
I dreamed I was at a Sabrina Carpenter private performance in a room full of students, some of whom are members of my cohort in grad school. It was a dark room except for the stage, where Sabrina was wearing a sparkly purple leotard and was dancing and singing. She was doing a great job though there was no enthusiasm from the crowd. I loved her hips and thighs and her strong body, knowing that some people think this kind of body is ugly or fat. I thought she was so beautiful. I’m neutral to Sabrina in waking life but here I was very admiring and defensive of her. As she performed her makeup turned out to be poorly applied, her acne and skin texture started to show through her foundation, but her sparkly purple eyeshadow looked beautiful and I focused on that. I though the acne and red spots made her human, not ugly or flawed. She finished her performance and the audience murmured about her and watched her leave instead of applauding. They were judgmental and disapproving, and she sighed as she went backstage. Then I was facing this group of students, and I was mad. I explained that even if you don’t like her kind of music, or you don’t like her, you must respect that she works hard. Applaud at least out of politeness. I claimed she is in the studio 8-13 hours a day, which is a full time job like anyone else. The audience was stiff and ashamed, but convinced by my words. I got them to clap and welcomed Sabrina to come sit in the audience, and her hair was brown now and sweaty, and she swung her bangs all the way to the side which looked funny but she was smiling without teeth. She sat on the floor amongst the tangle of people sitting on the floor and on sofas and armchairs.
Next I dreamed Danny, a classmate I know nothing about in real life, was talking about his upbringing in Turkey. (I don’t know if Danny is even Turkish in waking life). I was in a car with him and his sister, they were in the two front seats. Maybe the sister was driving. I thought to myself that they come from a lot of trauma, due to growing up in a war, and then their mother in particular having abusive parents. (NONE of this is real as far as I know). Danny said that “Lydia” had a kind of an abusive mother at times, and he didn’t know what to do with that or how to talk about it. (Lydia was probably the sister). I “saw into” their family history and their mother was an alcoholic who would sigh and sleep a lot. I put my hand on my chest because I felt the pain of all involved. The mother put up nails all over their house when she was drunk, and the number of nails coincided with how bad her addiction got. Some of the nails had hammers hung on them. It was the sister (Lydia) who first noticed something was wrong with the plumbing and dirtiness of the house, and it was creating a disease in their skin, big black hairs or nails growing out of their feet and down the sides of their torsos. Like porcupine needles. I saw glimpses of these effects on unknown, partially silhouetted people as Lydia described symptoms. The people were in the dark and dirty house, and there was a shot of someone’s swollen feet leaking fluid, yellow like melted butter or olive oil. I felt compassion more than disgust. There was a shot of one of the dark, dirty, tiled rooms that was perhaps the family’s basement, and nails were all over the walls, many with hammers, more diseased bodies with black “needles” come out if their skin, and a little boy turned the corner and cried out in pain. We didn’t see it but it made Danny wince and choke up. He said he was wondering what would make him “break” and that was it, it was children getting injured in that environment. I also thought seeing all the nails and hammers was devastating, knowing the mother’s drinking had gotten that bad. Overall while this part of the dream was dark and disturbing, I felt capable of facing it, in part because it wasn’t my family and isn’t someone I know well in real life. It felt like I could witness this and worse and be strong.
