Dear Subscriber,
So, my Sleeping Beauty will be traveling back in time via her fantastic ability to lucid dream. The discussions she’ll be having with her employer, Miss Ida Craddock, will be about how women achieve orgasms in the best way possible. As my main character, Mrs. Aroma Stanton, is from the future, and she’s also bipolar, her abilities in this area are quite interesting, to say the least, as established in chapter 1 of my novel.
This entire novel will be an interesting method for the Jungian psychoanalyst, Dr. Locklear, also from the future, to discover 1. If time travel is possible and can history be changed? 2. Will women throughout time be able to regain some of their sexual rights in the bedrooms and elsewhere across the globe?
Oh, yes. And then there’s the little problem about Postmaster General Anthony Comstock attempting to arrest Ida and put her away forever. Historically speaking, Miss Comstock committed suicide in a New York City hotel room. In my novel? We shall see what happens with these women on his “case.”
Lucid dreams have been traced throughout human history. When people don’t dream, it usually means they’re not using any of their creative thinking skills in the waking state, so a blockage comes in their sleeping and deep sleeping state. Those who have lucid dreams, in ancient cultures, were seen as spiritual leaders, shamans, and even human “gods.” Why? Because so much of life is unpredictable, even in this age of computers, which are, after all, merely unfeeling machines.
This just in! The “real” protagonist, about whom I’m crafting my new novel, Katharine Louise Frost Hemingway has permitted me to use her real name in the book, knowing full well she’ll be portrayed as a very intellectual and spiritual woman. LOL! I told her she has real “balls.”
Here’s a taste from my work-in-progress. Email me if you want to be placed on the waiting list to read/review it when completed:
I hold out a medallion I wear all the time around my neck. As a Jungian psychoanalyst, I know that becoming familiar with a patient’s inner world is key to establishing a rapport of trust. The medallion is the Sanskrit letters for Sahasrara-Padma or Crown chakra.
“I see you have the same smaller medallion around your neck. Do you subscribe to the Eastern meditative ways of the mystical, inner world, Mrs. Hemingway? I see some of the paintings in your room certainly have a surreal and dream-like awareness.”
Her eyes begin to glow, as she stares through me into another dimension.
“I must always live in the eternal present. Eckhart Tolle, Alan Watts, Jeddu Krishnamurti, and many others, as well as my current employer, Miss Ida Craddock, have all discussed the focused mental state needed to access the subconscious.”
“Indeed. I’ve gone over your historical, medical, and psychiatric backgrounds. I bring up the Crown Chakra for a reason. The fictional story I have here, The Untouchables, was written after you became a resident here, is this true?”
“Yes, but they won’t allow me to write any more fiction. Dr. Sharma says it’s just an extension of my delusional thinking. But I was simply doing my automatic writing the same as I paint. My intense pain is alleviated through my suffering. I’ve stayed awake for as many as ten days doing my paintings. My arms become like robotic parts of my body, but as long as I am in my unconscious state I can flow with the Tao.”
“I understand. But what about this tale and what it means today? I believe some of what happened in the story symbolizes your lucid dreams and your quest to stop Post Office General Anthony Comstock. You also adore the dancer Kate Bush, don’t you? Dr. Sharma gave me the report about how you escaped with the surreal painting you did that depicted Kate’s song And Dream of Sheep. You gave it to her at a concert and she put some of your poetry and fiction in her anthology, along with a print of the painting.”
“No! I never did that because I am Kate Bush!”
Katharine stands up and lifts her arms high, and I can hear the joints pop loudly. She begins to whirl around, and her legs are double-jointed, so she kicks them high above her head. Her arms begin to wave like two cobras dancing with each other.
“But it’s in your story, Katharine. Don’t you see? You can’t be Kate. The fiction tells the truth, as it comes from your subconscious, just like your art.”
I try to reach into her subconscious, and I wave the medallion in front of her eyes. But she spins and turns again, dancing all over the room, singing the song.
“Let me be weak, let me sleep and dream of sheep!”
The old gypsy woman comes to the door, opens it, and stares at us inside. A broad smile erupts on her face, as she lights a cigarette, placing the filter tip between her teeth. She seems to know what will happen next.
Katharine pulls off the green smock and stands in her bra and half slip. She starts spinning faster, and then she erupts. Screaming like a banshee, she runs out of the room and into the ward hallway. The gypsy runs ahead of her and leads the way, rumbling like a small tank, shouting at all the patients, nurses, and orderlies to stay out of the way.
They both bolt through the front exit, and I’m in fast pursuit. They race toward the bench under the oak tree in the yard. Katharine, as she dances, sheds her underwear and looks up at the half-moon, a Cheshire Cat in the night sky. Her mania possesses her as she bellows again toward the stars.
“Let me be weak! Let me dream of sheep!”
Something in my heart gives way, and tears come to my eyes. She reminds me of my mother, Rebecca, who was also what they used to term manic-depressive. Mother had that same look of reverent pain and joy. As if anything in the universe were possible, and she was going to accomplish it.
I also believe, deep in my heart and mind, that Katharine Hemingway can seduce the villain from the Nineteenth Century and keep him from arresting Miss Ida Craddock. As she was the mad woman who wanted to help other married women attain cleansing and joyful independence, and spiritual orgasms. Mrs. Katharine Hemingway is going to keep her lucid dream journal for me as she enters the mental freefall of the dreamy unconscious.
As her nude body spins, and she dances up to the tree, she clasps one of the low branches and pulls herself up, her tantalizing bottom waving in the warm summer air, but the pain she feels must be strangling her body, because she yells out, and she falls to the ground. I rush to help her, and the orderlies with flashlights come sprinting toward us with a ward nurse, who holds a syringe that glows menacingly under the moonlight like a messenger from the sadistic Queen of Hearts in Alice’s Wonderland.
My job as her psychiatrist, I can see, is now my job as her story’s future husband.
Thanks for the read, and enjoy your new week!
James Musgrave
EMRE Publishing
San Diego, CA
