Emeralds

Friends, yes it's true that I didn't get to sleep until 11 am, then was woken by phone calls and slept again at 1 and didn't wake up until 6 pm. But the good news is that it was a good sleep with a lot of REM (because I'm aware of at least 3-4 dreams, though I only remember snatches, and one larger snatch), and I managed to avoid using any kind of sleeping pill for 2 days. Getting to sleep was agonizing, basically a process that went on for about 7 hours. I had managed to sleep for only an hour in the night, because I was so disturbed about Las Vegas, and I finally just watched the news all night, getting more and more tired and upset but unable to fall asleep.

But I woke up feeling more refreshed than I have in a while.

The larger snatch of dream I recall is that I was wandering in a street at night, an old European town. When I got home I was surprised that one of the violinists from the orchestra was waiting for me, one I don't know that well. He embraced me warmly and my elbow jogged a giant television set and it kicked on. I got up to go and turn it off and met an old woman with a pale face and her hair still had traces of blond. She pointed to another old woman who was explaining to me the complexities of the TV and the difficulties of operating it. She held me arm with a bony hand and I saw that every finger had one or more emerald rings, some of them with huge emeralds, some of Colombian color and some African. One in particular was a huge oval cabochon with a flattened dome. I knew it was real because of the flaws. This was quite a happy dream with a lot of green, which I rarely see in my dreams.

In the smaller snatch of dream, what I remember is coaching a string quartet in how to articulate a lengthy passage in 9/8 time - an arpeggio, three repeated notes and a falling scale, all repeated endlessly in a harmonic sequence. It was also quite a joyful dream.