NO MORE SILENCE

"Dream theorists generally agree that recurrent dreams are related to unresolved difficulties in the dreamer's life."

Deirdra Barrett, Trauma and Dreams.

 

Real sensations in my dreams  

Taste, touch, loss of equilibrium, going up and down.

 

(This is a excerpt from a lucid dream I recorded immediately after I experienced it.)

 

Dream: Don't Do It. (January 22, 1990. Four months after my memory returned.)

 

...At one point I think I am going to be alright, but fear comes and goes.

 

 I say, "Wait a minute, there is something happening here, just go with it. Let's see what is going to happen." 

 

There are real hands and they are pushing me down on the bed and I don't want to---I can't see who it is or what it is, but there is the feeling of blankets. I can literally feel the hands. I'm actually in bed and I am being forced, and I don't want to do it. I can't tell if it is a physical, mental, or emotional feeling. His hands are pushing me down. I think they are on my arms and my arms are being pushed down. God, it is really...it is amazing what is happening to me here. My memory is coming back in this way. I'm not even going to have to be hypnotized. It is coming back to me anyway. God---it is mind-boggling. To feel these hands and the blankets and the whole thing and my heart is pounding---I mean, the blood is swishing. I can hear it. I can hear the blood swish into my heart. The valves opening and the blood swishing. Can you hear it? (I put the tape recorder to my heart.) This is violent. Two hands are  pushing my hands over my head and a knee is pushing my legs apart. It feels like I am being raped in a way. It is a real feeling. 
 

There are some very graphic sections in my book, and I have wondered if it would be better not to include them. I am worried that once a person has learned that as a child, I worked as an abducted prostitute, they will be unable to look at me in the same way. Should l expose my inner self like this? Will crazies come out of the woodwork and harass me? The thing is, most people don't know the full story of what happens to trafficked children. So much is left out. It's one thing to say the child was molested, and another to say they were forced through torture into prostitution and pornography. 

What drives me to tell my story is that I want people to understand that more needs to be done to protect children. I want my story to enrage people so they will do more to curb this horrendous industry. A range of people are involved, from those who rent out space to pornographers, those who develop the film, those who transport the merchandise, and the myriad others who help this industry thrive as an international business. 

 

 

   --- Pile of burning porn in the 1940's

 

 

THE METROPOLITAN OPERA

I recently went to the opera. Music has helped bring balance to my life. The Metropolitan Opera live streams around ten operas a year. Millions of people enjoy hearing the greatest opera singers in the world perform in a huge range of opera repertory. I go to the Razorback movie theater in Fayetteville, but almost all big city cinemas across the United States feature this Saturday series. The English translation is projected onto the screen and the sound is amazing. 

The opera camera roams around the audience, orchestra, and back stage as the scenery is changed, and interviews with the singers, conductors, stage directors, designers and backstage artists makes the intermission interesting and informative. 

The opera I saw was a new opera called, "Champion" by Terence Blanchard. It was about the famous boxer, Emile Griffith, who held the welterweight world champion title. His part was sung by Ryan "Speedo" Green, who not only has a great voice, but the body of a boxer. The nearly all black cast was  excellent.There were elements of jazz in the symphonic score and dancers performed in colorful costumes throughout. I'm looking forward to seeing the next two productions: Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute.  Tickets in Fayetteville, Arkansas, are only $23. 

I'm going for a bike ride. 

 

 

Onward and upward.