In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on mortals, while they slumber on their beds, then he opens their ears, and terrifies them with warnings, that he may turn them aside from their deeds, and keep them from pride, to spare their souls from the Pit, their lives from traversing the River.
- Job 33:15 -18.

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White Mouse

There is a need to ask questions about the circumstances involving a little girl. I have in my files an old series of just such inquiries. Surely they will answer them now, I say to an investigator, as they have before.

We are in an auditorium, the first few rows, and someone suggests the questions. (I have no memory of what the questions were; even what the general topic was.) In front of me is one who is gnarled and darkhaired and raffish, he says in not good English: “You...don't axt me questions. Ah…don’t answer questions!”

I realize he is the leader of the clan. There is an admiring sort of laughter around him; his tribe encloses him. The laughter tips over like waves into song, a strange and pretty tribal tune. The leader of the clan sits beside me now, nudges me with his elbow, but accidentally. It is simply the practice of the tribe not to question the elder. All righteous standing has shifted from the questioners to the tribe. Two women are standing, arm in arm, singing. I see it all from behind, as I am with the elder at the back of the section which includes the tribe.

I am running now, behind one who is the father of the little girl. He is very athletic and tripping off at a good pace, but she keeps right up with him and, strangely, so do I.

We are running through the winding path of a park in the woods. Some friend or acquaintance of the father calls out to him from the grass, where a picnic blanket has been spread. Some advice is offered relative to the little girl.

“I don’t need any help,” he is muttering to himself and to her. “I’m your father!”

--

In my dreams, often perspectives alter dramatically during the scene. I am on a roadway now, and it collapses so that I am outside my vehicle and moving on foot up a path which is very close around me, and steep. The terrain looks like the sandstone along the Colorado deep in the desert, but it’s the consistency of rubber, and I can mold it with my hands for easier footing. There are vehicles behind me, still of the roadway panorama, and I am conscious of blocking traffic perhaps. It is a strange transition, then, autos moving on a road which attenuates to me molding rubber sandstone up a steep hillside.

Here’s Scoob, and we’re alive with cats. They’re everywhere and we practically have to wade through them. Scoob is alert but friendly; he merely wants to know more about felines. He bursts away and I must run up stairs, like the scaffolding or wood passage of the docks. I dive and catch him just before he moves out into traffic.

A cat holds a vivid white mouse. The mouse is the focus of the entire dream. It is in the mouth of the cat, who seems quite proud of her prize. Then the mouse bursts free, is down on the ground, and then sits back and looks up in a gesture altogether human in effect. That’s the center of it, right there. A mouse shows a nature I can grasp, believe in. The white mouse is at the very center of it all.