Dream of returning pregnant to school and of escaping threats, told during an event for foundation to counselling students, Goldsmiths, University of London, 2nd February 2022

I am back in my old secondary school, looking around, with two of my old friends who are, like me, in our late 20s but in the dream, also 14 - 16 year-olds. I am in the ICT suite, which was also my 6th form room, there are computer, chairs and hexagonal tables. I remember that I used to watch Tracy Beaker on the TV in this room. One of my old teachers is here. I realise that I am heavily pregnant and am embarrassed and ashamed, feeling judged and wanting to explain myself to him. I then walk around the school buildings, exploring bits of it and going into the drama studio. I am next where I currently work, a youth service that is located in a school. It has a brown carpet and looks rather run-down. A young person I care for is there (I will call her ‘A’), and she is very distressed. This reminds me of what I know is a current situation for her. Somehow, she has the colour purple associated with her in the dream. She reaches out and touches my belly, I feel this is very intrusive and feel violated. I say “don’t do that.” The scene is now also the corridors at Goldsmiths, with black and white squares on the floor. I am then with A in an outside environment, it has a white colour but this is not snow. It is dangerous and there are characters from Harry Potter threatening us, evil people, one is Draco Malfoy, but they are faint, as I know they are fictional. I have to go through a cave with A so as to escape. I tell her that I am behind her, that she shouldn’t worry about me and should wait for me at the end of the cave. We go through the cave and emerge at the other end.       

 
The painting depicted the four scenes in the dream: secondary school, current workplace, place of study, and then in the outdoors with a cave. Julia chose the pages from The Interpretation of Dreams based on four panels, so as to depict the four scenes of the dream. During the painting process Julia found the following words of Freud on the pages and incorporated them into the artwork:
 
At the top of the right-hand page:
‘instincts of the older girl will be awakened towards the helpless new-born infant.’ 
 
In the belly:
‘a new baby
his opinion’
with link to
‘hand and strokes her’
 
There I also in the middle of the left-hand page:
‘a girl’, ‘birth of the first child’, and ‘cried out at the birth’
 
Next to the teacher:
‘a good-natured, affectionate child
and took her under his special protection’
     
And in the face of A:
‘seriously
disadvantage
A’
and on her body:
‘a girl’