Dream 1

In this dream, part of my feet fell off. Half of my right foot came clean off, while on my left it was mostly my toes. There was no blood or pain. My mother sewed my right foot back together and again, I felt no pain, but I could feel the thread pulling my skin. My father chased down the toes of my left foot, which seemed to have disintegrated into parts that looked more like plastic machine bits than flesh bone and rolled under the radiator. He put those back together. Both of them seemed very worried about my parts falling off, but I was not. I was just glad they were there to put me back together.

(FYI - my mother has been dead since 1988.)

After that I went out and walked down a busy urban street. I have no idea where I was. I encountered a group of Latinas, all of them no older than teenagers, surrounding a girl of about nine. They were explaining that she had lost two of her teeth and had to take her to the dentist. She had lost teeth before and had false ones made. The girl was very beautiful, with long wavy hair tied into a loose ponytail. I remember her clothes vividly - a white turtleneck covered with tiny red cherries and a red jacket. They sent her into a nearby restroom and I went in as well. Suddenly, one of my teeth was also loose and something crumbled out. I showed this to the girl so that she would not be afraid about her own teeth. But, suddenly my mouth was filled with more teeth bits. Were all of my teeth disintegrating? I pulled out some of the bits and saw they looked more like pink quartz. My mouth was full of them. I ran to the sink and washed out several mouthfuls of pink rocks. When I got them all out, I looked at my teeth in the mirror. They were somewhat worn, but otherwise intact.

The dream switches and I am lying on a mattress with a friend. It is not sexual; we are clothed and talking, but he is falling asleep. I show him my right foot and he is alarmed by the stitches. The foot is almost healed, though I walk with a limp. As he falls asleep, I tell him about my childhood as an ancient Roman. I tell him about about Roman life, about the streets of the city where I lived (which later became Paris), about merchants and artisans and slaves and I use Latin words to describe these things. I tell him that I have no memory of how I got here; that I remember living two thousand years ago and I remember living now, but the years in between a gray fog. What's more puzzling is that I am the same person in both lives, not a reincarnation. I feel wistful and homesick in the dream and I realize that I miss the ancient city and life.