Morning (and afternoon) of February 14, 1972. Monday. (Valentine’s Day.)
If you get queasy easily, do not read this…you have been warned…
An unknown illness had placed me in a strange state over a couple of days. I missed school for a couple days this week. I had never had quite this sort of illness before or since. I think perhaps it was some sort of food poisoning, but am not sure.
I had severe stomach pain and my dreams were, as can be imagined, rather feverish.
The main dream involved being in surgery. A bright light overhead sometimes made my head hurt slightly. Over time, there were at least six doctors of both sexes “working” on me from both sides of the cold metal table I was lying on.
Over time, I seem to be "pregnant". I am not sure how I, as an eleven-year-old boy, could be pregnant, but this seems to be the case. The surgery I am undergoing seems to be related to my "Cesarian". I am somewhat wary of what is to come as I lie on my back hoping the pain will ease off. Man, I thought only girls had babies. What am I in for?
A little later, I look down at my navel. From out of my belly button emerges a large mole cricket. (It is also possibly a Jerusalem cricket, or a hybrid, from what I heard in-dream, but mole crickets were common where I lived - I used to pick them up a lot and let them tickle me by trying to “dig” into my hand). As I watch there is a bit of blood and sand around my belly button as it crawls out. Apparently, I will not need surgery now, as the “birth” unfolded without a need for a Cesarian. I am not quite sure what to make of it all. Congratulations to me, I gave birth to a mole cricket. Intriguingly, the pain was gone in real life after this dream.
The other longer section was also odd. It was recurring over a couple days and actually comes back to me every now and then when I feel even slightly ill. It involves some sort of thin wooden female idol about eleven inches high (somewhat African in appearance, but also somewhat Maori-like) that is moving about and bending in a rotated “V” shape continuously (almost reminding me of mosquito larvae, but always mostly vertical - though perhaps this was actually the basis for the imagery). It seems to only be able to bend at the “waist” and nowhere else (well, it is just a statue after all). It seems to be “dancing” to a strange tribal reggae instrumental version of “Puttin’ on the Ritz”. I am not sure how in the world my subconscious managed that, but it soothed me over time in amazing ways. Over time, I do perceive a sort of chorus of (human?) voices, but all they say is a staccato “uh uh uh, uh uh uh”, etc.
There is also a concern for the “loss” of my father (who seemed to be “missing” but actually was there when I was ill), who actually did die on Valentine’s Day years later. I had also been thinking a lot of my sister Marilyn who died on the 13th but when it was Valentine’s Day in Australia where I live now (I had a strange association all my life that my sister Marilyn and my father would die on Valentine’s Day but probably in different years - this idea increased exponentially when it was her that first told me of my father’s death in the middle of the night, waking me from sleep). In real life, the teacher came by and gave me a large cardboard brief full of Valentine’s Day cards from the whole school. This is not all that odd, as they were usually distributed in this way at the school where everyone gave everyone else a signed Valentine (even same-sex “enemies”), which I know probably sounds weird in modern times.
