Picasso/Jung Pool Dream Testament
Dream Testament
Third Person, Omniscient , Present-tense
Glossa
Second Person, Present-tense
James has come to a place where there is an indoor Olympic-sized
swimming pool1. The air is moist and smells of chlorine2. He stands at
the side3, on the curved cement edge of the pool near the middle of one
end, and looks across the turquoise-blue water4. He sees at the side of
the pool opposite him5, floating in the water in a black, narrow innertube6 – thicker than the kind for a bicycle, but not as big around as a
automotive tire – a balding grey-haired man in his swim trunks. He
realizes it is Picasso.7
“Wow, that’s Picasso the famous artist!” James thinks to himself.
He bends over and dips his right hand8 in the water and splashes it back
and forth a bit. It’s warm and inviting9, but he doesn’t get in.
“I’m not dressed for this10” he thinks.
1
The pool is a body of water. Bodies of water can be the unconscious mind itself, and
therefore can be the dreamer’s self within the self within the dream.
2
Chlorine is acrid, cutting, etching. It cleans the water of impurities. It kills life in
the water. It kills the self.
3
Which side? Left or right? It is unclear. This lack of clarity stands in opposition to
the clarity of the water.
4
The pure blue of the pools water is artificial. It is painted in. It is false and
misleading.
5
Being opposite, the thing is dynamically linked to the dreamer’s self.
6
An inner tube is a toroid, a possible shape for space according to theory...
7
Why Picasso? Who is he to the dreamer…
8
The right hand is good, the left “sinister”
9
Warm and inviting like amniotic fluid.
10
What one is wearing can be very important. Who has not had the dream of being partly
clothed in public. James has recurring dreams of being without shoes and socks, a
When James looks up again, he sees that the man in the inner-tube is
not Picasso, but Carl Jung11, the famous psychoanalyst. They have a
similar look, balding12 and grey haired as they are, and it seems
possible to him that he could have mistook13 one for the other. He waves
at Carl with his still damp right hand thinking, “wow, that’s Carl Jung
the famous analyst.”
When he looks down into the water at his feet he notices how deep it
is. He thinks that he must be standing at the deep end, since the water
here is a very dark shade of turquoise. Suddenly James notices a white
object at the bottom of the pool over to his right. “What could it be?”
he wonders, and walks along the pool edge until he is above it. It
appears to be a coffee mug, the kind found in old fashioned diners,
white ceramic with thick walls and a solid-feeling handle. The kind
that makes a heavy “clunk” set down. The kind that is an “endless cup
of coffee,” never empty or cold.
There is something printed on the side of the cup, some kind of
lettering; but the water, with the distorting ripples of its surface,
makes the words impossible to read.
He awakens, the dream is over.
Revision Testament
Third Person, Omniscient, Past-tense
James found himself on an ocean liner far at sea. The sky was dark with
storm clouds and the waves were high but, surprisingly, the decks of
the ship was level and did not toss with the uneasy sea. James came
from below the main deck up to the recreation area, where there was an
indoor pool. It was a fairly big pool, at least for what you’d expect
on a cruise ship, and the water of the pool was tranquil and calm. It
condition he does not normally enjoy. Indeed, his dreams have changed over the years from
very uncomfortable to reasonably OK with being barefoot, a likely indication of becoming
more comfortable in the world.
11
Jung represents at least...
12
Baldness is a highly masculine trait
13
Ambiguous identities can be...
was turquoise blue and appeared to be at least 9 feet deep and with no
shallow-end.
One story above the pool was an encircling walkway. From it, James
realized, he could look down onto the pool, so he decided to climb the
stairs up to it. The railing, which went all the way around, was made
from heavy steel pipe with threaded fittings, and painted black. He
could feel the cold surface of the railing pull the heat from his hand,
even in the air that had grown damper and warmer as he ascended to the
promenade. He looked out over the pool and saw a lone swimmer, or more
accurately a lone floater, in the corner of the pool that was furthest
away from where he stood looking down. It was a bald headed man with a
grey goatee. He was floating with the aid of a black inner tube around
his thick waist. Thicker around than a bicycle tube, but not as thick
as a car tire’s tube, it kept him floating and bobbing in the water as
he dog-paddled around. James could see the little valve that stuck out
of the tube as it poked into the side of the floating man. The sound he
made as he splashed in the water echoed in the big hall.
With a start, James realized that this was none other than the famous
psychoanalyst, Carl Jung. What could he be doing there, James thought.
Herr Jung seemed happy enough, just floating on the pool, and even
though James and he were the only people in the hall, he paid no
attention to him, and contentedly dog-paddled at the far end of the
pool. Realizing he was being ignored, James looked around the pool and
saw, just below him in the water, a white object at the bottom of the
pool. It was a coffee mug, the kind found in old fashioned diners –
white ceramic with thick walls and solid-feeling handle. The kind that
made a heavy “clunk” when set down. The kind that was an “endless cup
of coffee,” never allowed to get empty or cold.
There was something printed on the side of the cup, some kind of
lettering; but the water, with the distorting ripples of its surface,
made the words impossible to read.
Process Marginalia
First Person, Singular, Mixed-tense
When I went to Long Beach on my uncanny pilgrimage, I stumble upon,
quite by accident, the municipal pool. I had completely forgotten that
it existed, and had only been there a few times when I was a young
teenager. It made me remember this dream, with Picasso and Jung and the
coffee cup. I had this dream more than 20 years ago, so it was a little
vague when it came to me. I did remember an indoor pool, and there was
some conflation in my mind between this municipal pool and the Plunge,
which was an old-fashioned public salt-water pool by the shoreline at
the Pike Amusement Park. The strongest memory is that is was an indoor
pool.
Another strong memory, perhaps the strongest, was of the white ceramic
cup at the bottom of the pool with illegible words printed on its side.
I’ve wondered for years what those words might be. Perhaps, if I had
focused harder with my mind’s eye when I woke up from the dream, I
might have gotten it. It’s always been a powerful mystery to me.
I parked my rented car along side the muni-pool and got out, wondering
what I might find. How could I find some relic, some uncanny object
here at the pool? “Of course!” I thought, “Find a coffee cup. Any
coffee cup.” Being a public place, I felt for sure that there must be a
littered styrofoam coffee cup around somewhere.
I walked up to the pool building and to one if its tinted-glass
emergency exit doors to look in. Yes, this was the same pool as in my
dream, at least insofar as the look of the place. The sense of
lighting, the use of cement and tile, the color of the water, all were
the same as my memory of the dream. I was at the north side of the
building and I started to walk around it clockwise. I got to the front
door on the east side and saw that I couldn’t go in unless I had a swim
suit. Oh well, let’s keep looking around the outside. On the beachfacing south side, I found my cup – or cups rather – in a pile of
collected debris. I took some photos of them in situ, and picked them
up to take home. They’re in the case to the left of this manuscript.
It occurred to me later that day that I should buy a bathing suit and
return the next day. I did, paid my three dollar fee and went for a
swim. It was very much on the inside like I imagined it. Indoor pools
have a certain dampness, smell and acoustic quality that I could also
distinctly remember from the dream. My dreams always have a strong
sense of place, even of directional orientation. I had also decided the
day before that I would swim to the bottom of the pool and gather some
water. I had purchased a plastic bottle with a snap-on cap filled with
toothpicks the day before at a supermarket so that I could use it to
capture water. I went down to the bottom of the pool, nine feet down,
and with my ears hurting me I quickly opened the cap of the now empty
toothpick bottle, captured some water, resealed the bottle and swam
back to the surface. The water is in the bottle to the left of this
manuscript.
Glossa
Second Person, Present-tense