Dream of being on subway, walking to Presidential debate, and going in with old schoolfriends, told at the Surrealisms Paris 2024 conference, at the American University of Paris, 28th October 2024.

I am on what looks like the New York subway system, but it’s cleaner and above ground and goes to suburban places. The train is silver and dark blue. It’s sunny. I am in a hurry to get to a presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. I overshoot my stop and have to walk back to where I was supposed to meet a friend of mine who is going to come to the debate with me. When I get to where we're supposed to meet my friend isn’t there, and so I'm waiting for her. Other people are milling around, outside the large building. The building is old, like from the 1930s, red brick, with hard limestone around the square door. I feel a sense of anxiety, waiting for her and feeling the need to go inside, being pulled in two directions. But then I see three women that I went to high school with and end up in a conversation with them and catching up. They have black shirts and I have a black jacket and white trousers. I was friends with one of the women when I was very young, but she was more like an acquaintance when we were in high school, and she was quite conservative. Eventually they peer-pressure me to go inside the debate with them but without my friend, who I'm still waiting for.

The dream was told shortly before the 2024 US Presidential election. The Dream Salon was part of the Surrealisms Paris 2024 conference, held by the International Society for the Study of Surrealism and hosted by the American University of Paris. The conference was a commemoration for the centenary of the founding of Surrealism. Details of the conference are here.

An accelerated 7-minute video of the dream being painted is on the DreamsID YouTube channel here.