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flexibeasti've had a couple of interesting dream experiences recently. i'm one of those people who can remember their dreams in (often excruciating) detail, and i often have lucid dreams (e.g. last night i had one of my many tsunami dreams; in the dream, i was like, "Yeah yeah, overwhelming emotions blah blah blah" and manipulated my dream to make the massive flood of water recede). But of course, some dream experiences are more fascinating than others.
The first experience involved being at some big pagan event. It involved a lot of high-energy activities, many of which were Officially Fun!!! i was rather cranky at this, because (a) some of us pagans aren't physically able to raise energy via the expenditure of much physical energy; and (b) it's rather tiresome - not to mention arrogant - to declare that Activity X Is Fun and that people who disagree with that Have Major Problems. So apparently i have some, er, 'concerns' about certain characteristics of the pagan communities i've observed, even though (a) at least one convenor of pagan events has generously offered to facilitate my attendance however possible (which i've not taken up because i'm not sure i've been in the right headspace to do so); and (b) i'm more meditatively- than ritualistically-inclined anyway (although i do want to try to do more 'practical magic', so to speak, because i feel it's an important part of working towards having a balanced spiritual life). i guess i'm nevertheless annoyed by particular too-prevalent attitudes and behaviour in the pagan communities, just as i'm annoyed / frustrated / angered by the prevalence of heteronormativity despite the fact that i move in less-than-heteronormative circles.
The other experience involved a particular adult male who is a regular feature of my dreams, and who frequently engages, or attempts to engage, in violence against me. My response to this varies: sometimes i defend myself, either calmly or frantically;sometimes i fight back and win; sometimes i fight back and lose; sometimes i cower in terror; and sometimes i flee. Which he was in this particular dream - being very verbally and physically abusive. When i woke up from it, i mentioned to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sacred_harlot that such dreams made me wonder just how comfortable with the male part of myself, especially given that i tend to think of myself as a woman who happens to have a cock rather than a clitoris and cunt. Further, one of the difficulties with being bi-gendered (albeit more female- than male-identified) is that it's even easier for people to assume that i'm a cisgendered male, which in turn makes me feel like i need to make a special effort to "look feminine"1 in order to counter such assumptions, even though i've been wanting to do so in any case. Having made such comments, i then went back to sleep - and dreamt that the male in question had written me a letter apologising for his bad behaviour! Which, when i re-awoke, came across to me as though he was saying "Oh-oh, this mind is about to reject 'maleness', and therefore me, altogether - i'd better tone things down a bit."
If only all of my subconscious mind responded to my conscious thoughts like that . . . .
1. Gender stereotypes, anyone? :-/ It's actually very frustrating that our culture binds our binary gender system so tightly to particular forms of presentation, particularly for masculinity: nowadays, cisgendered women can wear pants and still be read as 'female', whereas a trans woman such as myself wearing pants is more likely to be read as a cisgendered male. Ack.
The first experience involved being at some big pagan event. It involved a lot of high-energy activities, many of which were Officially Fun!!! i was rather cranky at this, because (a) some of us pagans aren't physically able to raise energy via the expenditure of much physical energy; and (b) it's rather tiresome - not to mention arrogant - to declare that Activity X Is Fun and that people who disagree with that Have Major Problems. So apparently i have some, er, 'concerns' about certain characteristics of the pagan communities i've observed, even though (a) at least one convenor of pagan events has generously offered to facilitate my attendance however possible (which i've not taken up because i'm not sure i've been in the right headspace to do so); and (b) i'm more meditatively- than ritualistically-inclined anyway (although i do want to try to do more 'practical magic', so to speak, because i feel it's an important part of working towards having a balanced spiritual life). i guess i'm nevertheless annoyed by particular too-prevalent attitudes and behaviour in the pagan communities, just as i'm annoyed / frustrated / angered by the prevalence of heteronormativity despite the fact that i move in less-than-heteronormative circles.
The other experience involved a particular adult male who is a regular feature of my dreams, and who frequently engages, or attempts to engage, in violence against me. My response to this varies: sometimes i defend myself, either calmly or frantically;sometimes i fight back and win; sometimes i fight back and lose; sometimes i cower in terror; and sometimes i flee. Which he was in this particular dream - being very verbally and physically abusive. When i woke up from it, i mentioned to
sacred_harlot that such dreams made me wonder just how comfortable with the male part of myself, especially given that i tend to think of myself as a woman who happens to have a cock rather than a clitoris and cunt. Further, one of the difficulties with being bi-gendered (albeit more female- than male-identified) is that it's even easier for people to assume that i'm a cisgendered male, which in turn makes me feel like i need to make a special effort to "look feminine"1 in order to counter such assumptions, even though i've been wanting to do so in any case. Having made such comments, i then went back to sleep - and dreamt that the male in question had written me a letter apologising for his bad behaviour! Which, when i re-awoke, came across to me as though he was saying "Oh-oh, this mind is about to reject 'maleness', and therefore me, altogether - i'd better tone things down a bit."If only all of my subconscious mind responded to my conscious thoughts like that . . . .
1. Gender stereotypes, anyone? :-/ It's actually very frustrating that our culture binds our binary gender system so tightly to particular forms of presentation, particularly for masculinity: nowadays, cisgendered women can wear pants and still be read as 'female', whereas a trans woman such as myself wearing pants is more likely to be read as a cisgendered male. Ack.
