Dream of spider and bugs trapped inside two joined crystal balls in a box of keepsakes, told at the 42nd annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, 23rd June 2025.

I am clearing out a box of old keepsakes. The box is made of cardboard or thin wood, with a lid, and has been in my closet for years. It has long-forgotten trinkets in its compartments and I am wondering which to discard, as they are not valuable. My friend is helping me and takes out a double crystal ball. She holds it so as to show it to me. It is made of two glass balls, joined together, and is yellowed with age. It would have been worn as a pendant and may have been given to me many years before, possibly by a boyfriend, but I don't remember. I am thinking that I want to keep the crystal as a keepsake, as it would have been precious in the past, but I am then very surprised to see that inside it there is a black spider, which is alive. I then see bugs inside which are moving. They are like the inclusions of small animals in amber, but those are frozen in time. I wonder, how did living things get inside the solid glass? I am repulsed and decide to throw it away. 

For the painting Julia chose page 13 of the edition we use of The Interpretation of Dreams because it had two paragraphs in the top half of the page, on which to paint the box and its lid, and a long footnote in the bottom half, for the hand and crystal balls.