ESRC Festival of Social Science, 9th November 2019, at the Freud Museum London

The prestigious Economic and Social Research Council included and funded us to be part of their 2019 Festival of Social Science. For this we were hosted at three venues, the Freud Museum London, RSA, and Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea. The Freud Museum dreams and paintings are shown here, the other venues are below.


   

I am on a dark moonlit country lane. I am with a man, we are holding each other and kissing. I feel happy and excited as this is new, but I also feel something is wrong. A large car drives past with a woman driving, it is his wife. He turns around, with his back to the road, pretending to urinate. He says ‘she hasn’t seen you,’ then pushes me and tells me to walk away. I walk down the dark road and the car follows me. I see a public toilet and go in the women’s side. It is cold, horrible, with a concrete floor. I go into a cubicle and can hear her footsteps, but think she must think I am only here to use the toilet. It appears that she has gone but then I hear she is in the cubicle next to me. Suddenly there is a knock on the metal cubicle door, I open it and she is there with a smartly dressed bouncer. He is smoking and stubs out his cigarette on me. I am in pain and wake up.






  

In my dream I wake up. I am hovering three feet above my own body, looking down on it. My friend Kiran is hovering next to me. My body looks like a shamanic representation of a body, a rather primitive drawing. It is entirely colored in a deep green blue. I am surprised, I find myself wondering at the speed of this transformation. Next moment I am standing at the top of The Meadows in Edinburgh, looking down the lovely greens. I am holding hands with Kiran, on my left. It is a bright day. Now I find myself in a large receiving hall in a castle. The room is rather bare of decoration. A large wooden table dominates the room. At the head of the table a man is sitting, it is obvious that he is the king. I am waiting on him, bringing something to drink. He looks rather tired and melancholy and I worry for his wellness. A guest arrives, it is a young man in his thirties, with pale skin and ginger hair. I walk over to the shelves on the wall and take one of the whiskey jars that fill the shelves. I think it is the jar from the area he is coming from. It is grey stoneware and has a small violet flower on it, like heather or lavender. I pour them both a cup. I am invisible in their service. Now I find myself in the shrubbery on the edge of the castle terrain and the surrounding woods. I am on a mission to fetch something from the outbuildings, which I can see ahead of me through the leaves. I have some time so I have decided to take the longer, scenic route through the woods. I am following a deer trail. Sunlight flickers through the leaves. There are small birds flying around and squirrels. I feel relaxed and happy. I am enjoying the beauty and quiet. All of a sudden I hear a small noise in front of me and I look down the path. I see a misty sprite attacking a young boy and girl who are walking down the path, hand in hand. It looks like a dragon made of water and it hovers above the ground making figures of 8 around the children. The boy has a red sweater and blue trousers, the girl’s clothes are yellow ochre. They crumble down to the ground. I am shocked, and at the same time I realize I cannot tell anyone, as they will think I did it and they will hang me. I am in no position to speak. I walk out of the woods.
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I am in a room with a group of young people. One young woman, maybe Sophie, stretches out a tea-bag over a candle to give a nice smell to the room. She goes to get food, saying that she will be back and asking me to prepare the table. Rather than setting the table I see I have to build one, as there isn’t one, and I make it with clamps taken from the futon-like sofa. A young man who may be her boyfriend helps me. I am confident in building it as I have glued tables together before. The young man has the confidence of youth, I am happy with this, not fazed even if he is clever, but in a way we are competing for confidence. I am glad we are not in a hurry. I dance, left and right, twisting my feet on their heels, twisting my hips, with my arms following my body. There are others in this bohemian room, which is all natural, raw, nothing superfluous. I feel I wake up in the room, Sophie is bringing back the food. We have nearly made the table. I am about to sand and polish it with a wood colour. We might be in a house in Greece, with whitewashed walls. The other people are soft and dreamy, not as switched on as the young man and me. I have a quiet supremacy. I am older, with more knowledge and can be generous. I admire the talents of the next generation. I am sixty but admire the young people here who are in their 30s and have understanding, which fills me with confidence that the planet will be OK. It is a relaxing dream, although with some ego.