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Morning of October 9, 1988. Sunday.



This was one of those dreams that did not seem to have me as the dreamer or the main character (though I do not quite feel disembodied in-dream).

I am in an unknown house where a girl lives with her pet cat (and at least one parent, it seems) in a small town in either the UK or Australia (not sure of the accent in regards to this one - sounded almost Scottish). Although it does not seem to be a stronger or clearer version of the “mystery girl” - she did have a long-haired male whitish cat of the same breed (a silver chinchilla) when I made contact with the girl who was to become my wife in real life a few years later (in Maryborough). I am fairly certain that the town in my dream even ended in “borough” (I think it was “Landsborough” though, or something very close, not sure of anything else) but I do not know (or seem to know) the girl’s name.

The cat’s name is “Spitfire”. Mostly, my dream solely involves the cat spitting fireballs at mice and burning them up before they are eaten by the cat. As I said before, fire is a common feature in my dreams, but not as common as cool, clear water.

Curiously, “Landsborough” is actually the real name of a small town in Queensland near where we live now , but I did not know it was a real place at the time, or if I did, it did not “register” - plus, it was also very close in sound to my sister’s married surname at the time anyway.

Also, at the time, I apparently did not know (or at least think about) that one definition of “spitfire” was “a person given to outbursts of spiteful temper and anger, especially a woman or girl”. That does not seem to have any personal connection, though.

Coincidentally, my wife had a pet cat named “Sparki” when I first met her.

Morning of September 28, 1965. Tuesday.



In my vivid dream (age 4, originally documented in detail on reel-to-reel, but written in adult grammar here), I am with all of my older brothers and sisters on my mother’s side (Marilyn, Carol, Earl, Dennis, and Jim). My parents are not present at any point. We are walking up an isolated trail on Grandad Bluff in La Crosse, though there are ambiguous associations with Chipmunk Coulee.

Without incident, we come to a large circular clearing deep in the forest where an old log cabin features near its center. I am told to see if anyone is home, so I go onto the porch on my own to look around while my relatives stand near the edge of the clearing (about a quarter of a city block away). I notice an old wooden rocking chair on the porch upon which a tasseled woven cushion sits. Suddenly, I am lying on my back, not remembering having fallen over.

An unfamiliar large white cat, almost as big as me, approaches me and is soon walking on my chest, getting closer and closer to my face. He does not make a sound at any point. Curiously, he has a very long white human-like beard, which almost hangs to the floor. I feel a bit uneasy but I do not call out right away.

Meanwhile, my siblings do not seem to think that I am in danger. They seem to be happy and are smiling and laughing. I remain wary of the cat’s human-like eyes and seemingly superior intelligence as well as its amazing apparent old age, though I am also somewhat annoyed by my physical discomfort and uncertainty of what is going on, so I attempt to call for someone to come and take the cat off me, but they seem to be walking back into the forest, though I get the impression they do not think I am in danger. I cannot call out very loudly anyway.

I am uncertain of what to do or how to respond. I do not want to annoy this “old man” by being mean to him, though he is probably too heavy to push away anyway. I am unsure of the cat’s intentions as they may be meant to be very friendly or even helpful somehow. I get the impression that a lonely old man who had lived in the cabin somehow became one with his pet cat; that the cat and the old man are now the same entity.

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Some basic dream components are rendered here. I had originally been walking, but near the end of my dream, I am lying on my back in the sleeping position my body is in in reality. A porch is autosymbolism for a specific level of unconsciousness of which is closer to the conscious self identity and the waking factor than other typical dream settings, but also hints at an attempt to go back into sleep and lucid dreaming. (This is based on personal experience even in childhood in deliberately using a porch or carport in some dreams to exit a building and enter a more vivid dream state “outside”, which has worked many times as such.)

Some people might assume that this dream was at least partly a result of being exposed to the bizarre ignorant belief of a cat stealing a child’s breath, but there is no way to verify if this was the influence. In reality, I did have a cat walk on my chest a number of times when I was both resting and sleeping. This may be why the transition of the preconscious into the emergent consciousness factor did not seem directly threatening, as well as holding the essence of a friendly old man.

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Ultimately, this remains a personal favorite and was one of many reasons my interest in dreams, including lucid states as here, remained throughout my life.

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