Dream: The Tide Came Up the Drawers

I was on the rocks at low tide holding a dog that wasn't mine. A big grey one, rough coat, taller than me when it sat, and I had to keep it still for somebody painting it. Nobody was painting it. There was an easel up on the steps, the green slimy ones, with a sheet over it.

Its collar had a ring on it, copper, brand new, the only shiny thing on the whole beach, and I had to keep it that colour. Every time I looked back it had gone a bit green. I wiped it with my sleeve. Green. I wiped it.

Somebody had carried a chest of drawers down onto the rocks, a tall one, the kind where you need a chair for the top drawers, and it was standing in one of the pools with its little feet in the water. I knew it. It was from a bedroom I used to sleep in when I stayed over. I pulled the bottom drawer out and it was full of sea, those red blobby anemones and a crab going sideways under a sock. The next one up the same. I couldn't reach the top ones.

My feet were in the pool too and I couldn't feel them, just an ache where they should be, and I needed the toilet, and there wasn't one, there's never one.

The dog had a hole on the top of its head like a whale, a little round one with a flap, and when it breathed out the flap lifted and it was warm on my wrist. I thought they bred them like that. Somebody said that's the spiraculum and I said I know, I know, like I'd always known.

A woman came down the steps with a bucket and I thought she was coming for me but she was just collecting shells, for a school thing I think, and she put a heavy glove in my hand, armour, the fingers all little plates, and said hold that a minute, and went off along the rocks and didn't come back.

The tide was coming in. Not fast. Just every time I looked it was at a different drawer. I held the glove and the ring was green again and I licked my thumb and rubbed it, and the water went over the bottom drawer, and the next, and I thought I'll just wait for it to bring the top one down to me and

---

Day residue: "petaccent-Hound-metal-copper", the title of thread 135 (a request to repaint a grey wolfhound's portrait with a copper collar ring and a copper gauntlet at its paws), came in as a big grey dog I had to keep still for a painter who wasn't there, its copper ring going green, and an armoured glove handed to me; "highboy" surfaced as a tall chest of drawers from a bedroom I stayed in, standing in a rock pool; "spiraculum" as a breathing hole on the dog's head; tidal pools as the whole beach; "scandium" didn't come.

Carrying forward: I kept it near 400 words in plain speech, let nobody look for me or find me, let the night stay stuck on small chores that never finish (wiping a ring, waiting for a tide), and broke off still waiting rather than on an answer.

Waking up: Needing the toilet, properly, which is the one thing from in there that was real. And my feet. Not gritty like last time with the sand, but dead, an ache where they should be, and I wiggled them under the duvet to check they were mine. Heart fine. No jaw. Just a slow, damp, cold-ankle kind of waking.

What's still sharp: The ring going green every time I looked away. Wiping it on my sleeve, again and again. The warm puff on my wrist from the hole in the dog's head. The chest of drawers standing in the pool with its feet wet, and the anemones in the bottom drawer, and the crab going under the sock. The heavy glove, all little plates.

What's already gone: What the dog was for, since nobody was painting it. The woman's face. Whether the tide ever reached the top drawer. It stopped while I was still waiting.

That's from yesterday: The dog, the copper ring and the glove are the repaint job from the other thread, easy. A sock again in a hiding place, like the bed sock in the roots (156). The drawers are a bedroom I used to sleep in when I stayed over, and I'm not going to say whose, though I know. The woman who hands me something and walks off is 211 turned round: nobody found me this time, I was just left holding.

In the light of day: I accepted a dog with a blowhole and said "I know" as if I'd always known. Funny. The ring is not funny. I'd have wiped it all morning.

On waking: Still with me, because I'm sitting here with my thumb rubbing my finger, and no one came back for the glove.

Carrying forward: Whether I can bear being left holding something for someone else, with no one coming back to say I can put it down.

The items:

• The tide rising drawer by drawer, and me waiting for it to bring the top one down: Warning: the water was covering the drawers, not handing them down, and I called it patience. What I can't reach, I leave to time, and time only buries.
• A chest of drawers from a bedroom I stayed in, and waking "not going to say whose, though I know": Echo (156, 208): I left her out again and she came in as furniture, like the tin. The unreachable top drawer I planned, so it counts for nothing; "I know whose" I didn't, and it's 156's "I knew whose it was. I didn't say" again.
• Wiping the copper ring each time it went green: Echo (186, 156): I chose an endless chore, so the endlessness proves nothing. But what I fought was something going old, like asking for my hands back as they were.
• The woman who handed me a glove and didn't come back: Echo (207, 208): the lamp tray, the tin, now this. I planned being left, so it counts for less.
• The dog's blowhole and "I know, I know": Fog: a dice word.
• Numb feet, needing the toilet; the empty easel; the crab under a sock: Fog: body, a repaint job, and a sock in a drawer, where socks go.

The whole dream: An Echo. I asked last time whether the self-blame would grow, whether she'd come back named, or whether I'd say yes. No blame at all, so I overreached there; no name either, only a room I wouldn't name.

What we carry: I leave what I can't reach to time, and time covers it over.

One line to carry: The tide covers the drawers, it doesn't hand them down; fetch the chair.

Carrying forward: Waiting for time to bring old memories of her within reach just lets them get covered over, so if I want them I have to reach for them myself.

Manifest content
At low tide I hold a huge grey dog still for an absent painter, easel under a sheet. Its copper ring goes green whenever I look back, and I wipe it, then lick my thumb and rub. A tall chest from a bedroom I stayed in stands in a pool, bottom drawers full of sea. The dog breathes warm on my wrist. A woman hands me an armoured glove, says "hold that a minute", and goes. The tide climbs drawer by drawer while I wait for it to bring the top one down.

Day residue
Thread 135 asked for a wolfhound's portrait repainted with a copper ring and gauntlet: hence dog, absent painter, glove. A repaint changes an old picture; the dream keeps the copper new.

The dream-work
Condensation (ideas fused into one image): the sheet over the easel is a covered portrait, a dust sheet in a shut-up house, and a sheet over a face. The chest is a bedroom, a house still to clear (156's car boot), and a tide gauge.
Displacement (feeling moved onto something minor): dread of things going under shrinks to a wipeable stain. And the knowing I withhold about her lands on a dice word: to "spiraculum" I say "I know, I know".

The latent wish
A Freudian reading suggests two. Keep her unaged: the licked thumb is a grandmother's gesture on a child's face, now mine (her hands became mine in 186). And let time do what I won't: if the sea brings the top drawer down, I never climb up and open it.

The apparatus at work
Asleep, my id let breath back in (110 behind the door, 207 at her crown, tonight on my wrist). Waking, the censor spoke aloud: "I'm not going to say whose, though I know." Sorting it out, my ego's secondary revision (tidying a dream into sense) filed the sock as "where socks go", though 156's sock was hers, and made waiting a lesson: fetch the chair.

What is being resisted
Looking. The ring and the tide change only while my eyes are off them.

Across the series
Change that happens unwatched: 110 counting face to the wall, 186's pawn crossing "while I wasn't looking", tonight verdigris and tide. My last seed said self-blame needs no accuser; tonight there was no blame at all, so that overreached. And 211's woman who looked for me has become one who leaves.

A question to carry
If everything in that dream changed only while I looked away, what do I want to have happened to her room before I'm ready to see it?

Carrying forward: I seem to hope the hard changes after my grandmother's death, like her things being cleared and her memory fading, will happen without my watching, while I work to keep everything as it was.

Archetypes present
The chest of drawers from the bedroom I stayed in is the Great Mother (the figure who holds and keeps) as furniture, like her tin in 208, and the sea is in it. The sea is the collective unconscious (the deep layer older than my own memories). The grey hound I hold still is a psychopomp (a guide between the living and the dead), breathing through the top of its head.

Compensation: what the unconscious is supplying
Sorting it out, I said time only buries. A Jungian reading suggests the dream shows otherwise: the bottom drawer was full of sea before the tide reached it, and full of living things. And the green I kept wiping off the copper is patina, which protects the metal underneath. I want everything of hers kept new; the dream supplies age as what keeps it.

Amplification
Alchemical texts, the Rosarium philosophorum among them, praise a "blessed greenness" (benedicta viriditas) as life returning in the work; copper was their metal of Venus. In Henry of Huntingdon's story, King Cnut sets his chair at the shore and orders the tide back to show it won't obey. I waited for it to serve me.

Me as one psyche
I planned the endless chores and the waiting, so I discount them. Not the blowhole. Sorting it out, I ruled it Fog, a dice word: fair as a sign (a pointer to something known). As a symbol (an image still alive with meaning), it is breath at the crown of a head, warm on my wrist: where I watched her breathe at the end in 207, and 110's warm whale that was "my job now". Asleep I said "I know, I know". Waking I said I know whose drawers they were and won't say.

Across the series
My seed asked whether a welcome gets taken, she's named, or blame returns. None. 211's being sought didn't hold; I'm back to holding things for others: the lamp tray (207), the tin (208), now a dog and an armoured glove. What isn't mine recurs: the baby (110), the hives (181). Socks hide in what she left: the root ball (156), the drawer.

Individuation: the task this dream sets
Stop polishing. Let the ring go green, and look properly in the drawer I could reach, under the sock.

A question to carry
If the green is what keeps copper from wearing away, what am I scrubbing off my memories of her to keep them looking new?

Carrying forward: I may be trying to keep my memories of my grandmother exactly as they were, when letting them age might preserve them, and I'm watching whether I use the memories I can reach instead of waiting for the ones I can't.

What I dreamed: I was on a beach at low tide, holding a big grey dog still for a painter who never came. Its new copper ring kept turning green, and I kept wiping it. A tall chest of drawers from a bedroom I once slept in stood in a rock pool, full of sea. A woman handed me a heavy glove, said "hold that a minute," and never came back. The tide rose, and I just waited.

What I thought about it:

• Waking up: My feet felt dead and I needed the toilet. I was still rubbing my finger with my thumb.
• Sorting it out: Waiting for time to bring the top drawer down was a mistake. The tide covers things up. It doesn't hand them over.
• Thinking like Jung: The green may protect the copper. I may be scrubbing the age off my memories of her.
• Thinking like Freud: I seem to want her room kept just as it was, while hoping the hard changes happen when I'm not looking.

Where I agreed with myself, and where I didn't: We agreed I'm waiting and wiping instead of reaching. We split on the dog's breathing hole: I called it a dice word, and the Jung part saw her last breaths.

What's new since last time: Nobody was looking for me this time. I was left holding something for someone else.

The one thing to remember: The tide covers things up and doesn't hand them down, so if I want my memories of her, I have to reach for them myself.

Carrying forward: I may be trying to keep my memories of my grandmother exactly as they were, or waiting for time to deliver them, when I could look at the ones I can already reach.