Sep 30 2001
Dream!
There was a long preamble to this dream but I’ve forgotten most of it, except that I was with a group of people at some kind of conference or similar gathering, staying in overcrowed accomodations, and it had something to do with China.
The part I do remember starts with me hanging out on some kind of sports field with Robert DeNiro. The pitch was very large, perhaps twice as big as a football field, and there were no bleachers or grandstands. Behind us was a stand of tall arrow-straight trees with trunks that would be the envy those who make masts for sailing ships. The stand was as long as the sports pitch, but not very deep. The trees were spaced about three feet apart and you could see through to the other side.
I walked over for a look and on the other side of the trees I saw a large bull. The bull charged towards me, quickly, the way a dog would, but stopped at the tree line because the passage was too narrow. Still, it made me jump. I noticed a clearing to the left where the bull could get through if he was so inclined. Nervously, I walked back to DeNiro and we plopped down on the grass to discuss this matter of the bull on the other side of the trees. I could still see the bull, some 40 or 50 metres away, and I noticed it was quite docile now, and there was a woman and a young boy standing with it.
(Aside: yesterday I witnessed through my kitchen window my neighbour–who keeps two playfull but loud dogs–being chewed out by another neighbour because every time the second neighbour went out into his back yard the first neighbour’s dogs would charge at him from behind their fence, barking loudly.)
A minute later I heard a bit of a fracas and looked towards the stand of trees. Farther down to the right the bull was charging through a clearing. The boy was yelling to his mother “Mom! He found a way through!”. The bull came charging onto the field about 60 metres away, sending people scattering. As is the way with dreams, DeNiro had somehow morphed into my friend John D. (the connection between DeNiro and John D. goes way back, and is not new to my dreams). “What should we do?” I asked. John said “Stay put. If we run it will charge after us”.
I was inclined to run, but I saw the wisdom in John’s suggestion. The bull was out there charging after anyone who tried to run away, although it appeared as if no one had actually been hurt yet. So there we were, laying on the grass, with a few dozen people standing around in a 50-meter radius all trying to figure out what to do about this bull.
Finally, someone literally grabbed the bull by the horns and wrestled it to the ground. I was amazed at how easy that appeared, as if the bull had been trained to not resist when grabbed like that. There was a bit of a struggle and then the bull was on his feet again. Again, the guy grabbed the bull by the horns and wrestled it to the ground, but by now they were right next to us. “Somebody grab its legs!” the man with holding the bull in a headlock yelled. I was closest to the back legs so I flung myself upon them and held on tightly. No one was on the front legs, and the hooves were mere inches from my head. “If this bull twitches I’m dead” I though. Then John grabbed the front legs. As we were holding it down, I noticed that the bull was not black, but blue–sort of a shimmery navy blue, with the texture of stiffened velvet.
Eventually the bull was calmed, righted, and led away, while I stood there scraping the mud off my face.
