Seductress of infamous Canadians
I dreamt about a woman who carried on affairs with various men. She used elaborate illusions to keep these affairs secret. It seems like a further development on Sandy, the serial killer and also had similar elements with Darwin and the ill-fated dissidents in that it was a period drama with older male characters and a younger woman who defied traditional roles and standards of sanity.
The main character looked like a Shakespearean actress I remember from the Stratford Festival in Ontario many years ago. She resembled Elizabeth I, with red hair pulled tightly back and intricately curled. She was about 40. Like the women in the Darwin dream, she wore a black gown with a white lace collar. It was also one of my problem-solving dreams, in which I replay aspects of the narrative to try to improve on them. Unlike Sandy and Darwin, this dream was a slapstick comedy in the style of Shakespeare or a Rossini opera. It was so consistent and elaborate in detail that after I woke up, I thought I was remembering a movie we had seen recently. I couldn't believe I had dreamt it, and it took me a few minutes to understand that I had. Unfortunately, by then I had forgotten many details.
The woman had previously carried on sexual affairs with numerous men. However, the dream focused on four relationships she carried on concurrently with older men. They were all supposed to be historical characters, great Canadian leaders from the 19th Century. One of them seems to have been John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister. Last night on CBC I heard that First Nations activists are lobbying to have a statue of Sir John in Victoria pulled down because of his horrible treatment of indigenous people. Another one of the men might have been Isaac Brock, a hero of the War of 1812, whose family I'm descended from. This dream seems to have been making fun of long-dead white Canadian men. In the dream, the four men were acquaintances or friends of one another.
It took place on an elaborate dark stage similar to the Festival Theatre in Stratford. The central part of the stage resembled a house with a large room upstairs and windows overlooking the street below. Sometimes the stage reversed to show what was going on inside. The dream contained no explicit sex scenes, only elaborate, humorous romps with characters trying to escape detection.
The woman's first target was an older, white-haired man who was neat and elegant but an invalid. She began as a companion but soon became his mistress. She started with the best intentions. I'm not sure what my consciousness meant by "best intentions," but apparently after starting with him, she discovered it was fun and couldn't resist the thrill of elaborate deception. The first man was close friends with the third and fourth, so she decided to penetrate their old-boys' club after starting with him.
Next she became the lover of an eccentric recluse. He was one of my shadow figures, secondary dream characters who lack corporeal form. He wore a blob-like robe, which was red but also colourless. He was some kind of spiritualist and magician, but only used his powers to inform or entertain himself, because he never left his mansion. The rooms were dark and bare, like those of Ebenezer Scrooge. The woman began seeing him for practice because it was easy to conceal. Unlike the other relationships, this one lacked elaborateness. She carried out her liaisons in quick succession within a few hours every day.
Her third lover was a dark-haired dandy who was maybe Isaac Brock but looked like Francis Drake. He had a pretty blonde wife who was much younger. The main character befriended them as a couple at a picnic with lots of cheese and fruit. The husband was a notorious womanizer, so she took advantage of this and allowed him to seduce her. Once their affair began, he fell in love and wanted no woman but her.
The dream began using a device where things would be carrying on with everyone behaving normally, then the device would signal that the deception must begin. It involved a wooden red baton, but I don't remember who held it or gave the signal. Then things became frantic and hilarious.
Part of the affair with the dandy involved hiding in a hay wain to escape from the picnic. Then the lovers scrambled into an upper room of his house in the central part of the stage.
Though he was inherently ridiculous, she enjoyed his company. She began living with him while still maintaining the previous affairs. She acted as his talent manager. His wife was living in another house. She suspected the affair but whenever she tried to catch the lovers together, they eluded her. The dream focused heavily on this episode, replaying it several times to perfect the comic details. The scene in the hay wain sometimes ran together with her escape from the house through an upper window. She always managed to disappear at the right moment and move on to the next item on her agenda.
Which became the final liaison with her fourth lover. Though he was supposed to be John A. Macdonald, he looked more like Stephen Harper, neatly groomed with short silver hair. He was a bank executive: confident, dignified and diplomatic. She apparently seduced him for the private pleasure of making him ridiculous, like Malvolio in Twelfth Night. He became her partner in deception to protect his reputation. He always managed it with aplomb, but she saw the fear behind his facade. It became emotional blackmail. She even revealed her other affairs to him to increase his discomfort about the situation, because two of the men were his friends.
The dream played through the sequence of lovers several times, with the predicaments and deceptions becoming more complicated as a humorous plot device. There was finally a crisis where the cheated wife managed to expose the plot. The seductress escaped with the husband to travel the world, leaving the fourth in shame, his career a shambles.
The main character looked like a Shakespearean actress I remember from the Stratford Festival in Ontario many years ago. She resembled Elizabeth I, with red hair pulled tightly back and intricately curled. She was about 40. Like the women in the Darwin dream, she wore a black gown with a white lace collar. It was also one of my problem-solving dreams, in which I replay aspects of the narrative to try to improve on them. Unlike Sandy and Darwin, this dream was a slapstick comedy in the style of Shakespeare or a Rossini opera. It was so consistent and elaborate in detail that after I woke up, I thought I was remembering a movie we had seen recently. I couldn't believe I had dreamt it, and it took me a few minutes to understand that I had. Unfortunately, by then I had forgotten many details.
The woman had previously carried on sexual affairs with numerous men. However, the dream focused on four relationships she carried on concurrently with older men. They were all supposed to be historical characters, great Canadian leaders from the 19th Century. One of them seems to have been John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister. Last night on CBC I heard that First Nations activists are lobbying to have a statue of Sir John in Victoria pulled down because of his horrible treatment of indigenous people. Another one of the men might have been Isaac Brock, a hero of the War of 1812, whose family I'm descended from. This dream seems to have been making fun of long-dead white Canadian men. In the dream, the four men were acquaintances or friends of one another.
It took place on an elaborate dark stage similar to the Festival Theatre in Stratford. The central part of the stage resembled a house with a large room upstairs and windows overlooking the street below. Sometimes the stage reversed to show what was going on inside. The dream contained no explicit sex scenes, only elaborate, humorous romps with characters trying to escape detection.
The woman's first target was an older, white-haired man who was neat and elegant but an invalid. She began as a companion but soon became his mistress. She started with the best intentions. I'm not sure what my consciousness meant by "best intentions," but apparently after starting with him, she discovered it was fun and couldn't resist the thrill of elaborate deception. The first man was close friends with the third and fourth, so she decided to penetrate their old-boys' club after starting with him.
Next she became the lover of an eccentric recluse. He was one of my shadow figures, secondary dream characters who lack corporeal form. He wore a blob-like robe, which was red but also colourless. He was some kind of spiritualist and magician, but only used his powers to inform or entertain himself, because he never left his mansion. The rooms were dark and bare, like those of Ebenezer Scrooge. The woman began seeing him for practice because it was easy to conceal. Unlike the other relationships, this one lacked elaborateness. She carried out her liaisons in quick succession within a few hours every day.
Her third lover was a dark-haired dandy who was maybe Isaac Brock but looked like Francis Drake. He had a pretty blonde wife who was much younger. The main character befriended them as a couple at a picnic with lots of cheese and fruit. The husband was a notorious womanizer, so she took advantage of this and allowed him to seduce her. Once their affair began, he fell in love and wanted no woman but her.
The dream began using a device where things would be carrying on with everyone behaving normally, then the device would signal that the deception must begin. It involved a wooden red baton, but I don't remember who held it or gave the signal. Then things became frantic and hilarious.
Part of the affair with the dandy involved hiding in a hay wain to escape from the picnic. Then the lovers scrambled into an upper room of his house in the central part of the stage.
Though he was inherently ridiculous, she enjoyed his company. She began living with him while still maintaining the previous affairs. She acted as his talent manager. His wife was living in another house. She suspected the affair but whenever she tried to catch the lovers together, they eluded her. The dream focused heavily on this episode, replaying it several times to perfect the comic details. The scene in the hay wain sometimes ran together with her escape from the house through an upper window. She always managed to disappear at the right moment and move on to the next item on her agenda.
Which became the final liaison with her fourth lover. Though he was supposed to be John A. Macdonald, he looked more like Stephen Harper, neatly groomed with short silver hair. He was a bank executive: confident, dignified and diplomatic. She apparently seduced him for the private pleasure of making him ridiculous, like Malvolio in Twelfth Night. He became her partner in deception to protect his reputation. He always managed it with aplomb, but she saw the fear behind his facade. It became emotional blackmail. She even revealed her other affairs to him to increase his discomfort about the situation, because two of the men were his friends.
The dream played through the sequence of lovers several times, with the predicaments and deceptions becoming more complicated as a humorous plot device. There was finally a crisis where the cheated wife managed to expose the plot. The seductress escaped with the husband to travel the world, leaving the fourth in shame, his career a shambles.