Vipassana Guatemala: images and memories

A few miscellaneous memories.

The course was the 15th course since the inception of Vipassana Guatemala in 2007, basically propelled forward by a group of local enthusiastic meditators. It was incredible how much effort and time had gone into organising one of these courses without the readymade infrastructure that we enjoy in the West.

The courses are held at Finca La Milagrosa, a large property previously used for religious purposes, though most of the religious paraphernalia is covered with discreet brown paper around the property. The rooms are tidy and clean, though spartan as if one was staying at a monastery - basically a perfect setting.

The gardens are not huge but full of fruit trees and suitable for walking. The men´s side even had a little hill that one could climb, but the women´s side was all flat. Every morning the sunrise would peek over a row of pine trees that lined the front of the property, and some mornings with the misty clouds made for a beautiful sight. The days were warm and the nights modestly cold.

Though I knew exactly was up ahead, I had no idea how this course would go. Each time is so different for so many reasons. The biggest physical struggle for me was an awful thoracic back pain that lasted from Day 3 to Day 6. It was so bad that I considered leaving on Day 3 as I couldn´t imagine sitting there any longer. I imagined all sorts of things wrong with me - did I have an undiagnosed spinal cord tumour? transverse myelitis? my mind really went wild. On Vipassana day I also had a deep pain in my right shoulder (usually my good shoulder!) which stayed with me through that long afternoon session, the first adhittana session. I don´t even know how I got through those sessions when I was in so much pain, but it all passed, as everything always does.

Mentally I had a bad day on day 1 and spent the entire 6pm group meditation session crying. It stopped at some time though, the tears dried, and I realised that tears are really made of salt because they made crystalline tracks down my face. There is also a trajectory for tears - they fall down your face and land in a certain way. The rest of the days were not bad, around day 5 I started thinking of all the children whose deaths I had seen. I spent time recalling them and their families, and said goodbye to them in my head. The day after that I did the dying adults (not so many memorable ones) and the day after that I did all the grievances during my training. Then I asked myself if there were other outstanding issues, and worked through those. After that I felt like I was free and unburdened.

Coming out of silence is always really hard for me. The first time in 2003 I was overwhelmed and like most new students, I just went around chattering with everyone and anyone. The second time in 2013 I spent most of the day walking and talking with Kim, a much gentler emergence. This time I had gone to the course with the other Aussie girls Emma and Brei so I spent a lot of the day talking to them, but also met a few other people. It was awfully noisy. My throat was so scratchy and I found it a great effort to talk. But before we knew it, it was the morning of day 11, another beautiful day to head out into the Guatemalan sunshine, to our separate adventures.

Vipassana Guatemala: food and dreams (part 2)

Day 6

Breakfast: beans & tortillas 

Lunch: vegetable curry with potato, pumpkin & peas (a new cook?), lettuce salad, pink lemonade

another lost dream - will it ever come back to me?

sore right ankle - Jack island - US led Israeli base - list of prices - warning 17yo guide - TW temple - giant TVscreen - escape from police - a tall fence - 2 guys - Japan hotel- where to next?

Day 7

Breakfast: granola, mango

Lunch: red kidney bean stew, spinach and pasta soup, mole sauce with bananas (utterly delicious)

1. 

I am walking along Wulumuqi Rd in the northern direction, looking for a post office to post a map to Mongolia. It feels like I´m part of the amazing race and I am alert looking around for my competitors. Star comes up next to me and offers to help me. We turn right onto Fuxing West Rd but it is hard to see where the post office is.

We walk past a truck labelled Mr &Mrs Pizza with plastic models of fat mascots in the tray of the truck. Then we come to a playground where all the play equipment looks rather strange. I tell him that there was no such playground here when I was young and I wonder when it was built. On the other side of the playground is a swimming pool, with the weeds growing into the side of the pool. We walk closer to take a look and one end is 4m deep.

Such a deep pool right next to a playground? What a disaster. I think to myself, and wake up.

2. 

This dream starts inside a boarding house. It is really dark inside as if the natural light couldn´t possibly make its way inside. The rooms are tiny and cramped, each stuffed full of furniture and children. I walk down the aisle seeing all the little kids looking sad and forlorn. I wonder where their parents are.

Then I see Barbs and realise that she is running this boarding house - of course she is, with her social work background and all. She looks older and more jaded. Her eyes have lost of her usual spark and she looks tired.

I gather some of the children including one little girl who looks rather sick, and take them up one level which looks like a loft. There is a big kitchen there and I set out to make a cake. The children gather around me and initially they are questioning, but soon they start joining in helping with cracking the eggs and measuring out the sugar. The recipe calls for coconut but there isn´t any in the kitchen - never mind, I thought, we will just have cake without coconut. 

All of a sudden a big group of adults rush into the room and all the children scatter silently like a flock of frightened birds. A burly middle aged woman comes up to me and introduces herself as Rhonda, Barbs´ assistant. She informs me that this is a cocktail party for the people who donate money to the children´s shelter.

Good, I think to myself, maybe I can point out some of the appalling things that are happening here. Light music is playing and canapes are being served. As I pick up an impossibly small sliver of blueberry cheesecake on a skewer I realised I never cleaned up the cake mess in the kitchen. I duck into the kitchen and push the baking pan with the unbaked cake into the corner. It makes a strange noise and when I look closer, black marks are all over the kitchen bench. 

Rhonda comes over and gives me an angry look, then I wake up. 

Day 8

Breakfast: fried tortillas, gruel made from oats 

Lunch: savoury mole with potato and turnip, bean puree, plantano with hibiscus 

This dream starts in my car, pulling up into the centre of Berowra. I stop in the Woolies carpark (is there really a Woolies in Berowra?) and then I see a sign for a Vinnies in the same block as well and make a mental note to return. 

I walk slightly down the road away from woolies and vinnies and come to an abandoned shop. It looks really interesting with all sorts of antiquey curios strewn around. At the other end of the shop is a locked gate, through which one can see a railway track leading into a tunnel. A man is there, photographing the railway. 

He tells me that Berowra has changed so much since he was young, and asks if I had been to Berowra before. I tell him I used to teach there every week and he smiles. We walk down the road together and check out the ¨hip & happening¨ place in Berowra. There are a number of little shops around and we purchase sandwiches for $7. Around the corner is a store offering an eco village experience ¨try 20min of the beach for free!¨ Then we see an icecream shop but it is super expensive at $8 for a scoop. 

We leave the block and walk back to Woolies. The shops surrounding the carpark have changed and now there is an army surplus store. There I see Shelley arguing with the man at the counter - over a refund of her earrings. One had given her an ear infection and she wanted to refund both earrings but the man would only give her $4 for one earring. I wake up at the ridiculity. 

Day 9

Breakfast:  granola, pineapple tea 

Lunch: vegetable soup, couscous with chickpeas, cinnamony pumpkin mash

1. 

I have been kidnapped and am kept inside a house. There are very few clues as to where I am but my captor is a lady. She is slowly torturing me, entering several times a day to subject me to all sorts of strange things like electrocution and plucking my hair out one by one. One time she is doing the crossword with me and every time I get a word wrong she would punish me somehow. It is utterly terrifying. 

One day I become utterly convinced that she is going to kill me today. once she enters the room I decide I´m going to take her out. She punches me in the head and I fall off to the side, but I get up straight away and tackle her, then I step on her head as hard as I can and hear a crunch. I think I may have broken some of her skull bones, and after a while I feel safe enough to leave here there, an inert lump. 

Then I run out the door and down some steps, at the bottom of which there is a phone. I call 000 and then look for the exit from the house, but I can´t find it. I run back up the steps and the woman is still lying lifelessly where I left her. I look all around the captive room though I know there is no exit from the room. I see a police car and an ambulance pull up to the driveway, and realise that they won´t be able to find me in the secret part of the house. 

I bang on the window as hard as I can, but of course they can´t hear me. behind me my captor gives out a slow groan. I scream and wake up. 

2. 

I am in Shanghai for just one day and decide to catch up with Elsie. She takes me to a shopping mall that has just opened and we wander around the shops. We are looking for a haircut place because my hair is desperately long. She says we must explore all the shops but it´s hard to keep track of where we have been already. We are pretty much lost when we come to a beautiful pond full of blooming lilies, which makes us pause and take some photos.

Coming out of the lily pond, I see a subway station and think that I can take it anywhere so I can get to somewhere I know. I get on the train and it´s awfully crowded. After leaving the station it doesn´t move, stuck on the rails. I think I´m going to miss my flight, but when I take out my phone there is no reception. I am literally stuck. Then I wake up. 

Day 10

Breakfast: bread

Lunch: pasta salad, lentil soup 

Dinner: vegetable soup, rice, chocolate khir

No dreams on the last day, the end of the silence. 

Vipassana Guatemala: food and dreams (part 1)

Day 0
Dinner: vegetable soup with tortillas
Dreams: none

Day 1
Breakfast: fruit, granola, cinnamon tea
Lunch: lentil soup, rice, cabbage & carrot salad, agua de Jamaica

Dream:
Shelley and I are at a restaurant. We've paid for some sort of food and are holding receipts and a copper lid. We are supposed to look for our dish which also matches the copper lid.

We wait and wait but nothing matching comes up. in the end Shelley suggests we take this one dish of beans that is close ish to our lid but clearly not the right one. At that moment Helen shows up and says - hey I've been waiting for that forever! let's get a refund for my one and eat it together.

We walk outside and it is St Andrews square. There are people selling pineapples for 19c and we start debating whether thats cheap. I argue that it's cheap in any currency and we get one. Next we debate the difference between San Salvador and El Salvador.

Then I take out my phone and use a square of green anaesthetic gauze to wipe the screen. When I finish the screen is completely white. Then I wake up.

Day 2
Breakfast: black beans & tortillas, pineapple and ginger tea
Lunch: pasta bake with spinach, carrot &rocket salad, lemonade

Dream:
In this dream I am in a Nigerian village and I slowly sense that I have been kidnapped there. All around me are Nigerians and I cannot tell who has kidnapped me. I'm standing in the square with many people milling around.

Then I see a man in a blue & black stripe jumper and something stirs fear in me. Is he the captor? A child runs by and grab the lens from the SLR camera in the man's hands. I fear for the child but he runs away really quickly and the man makes no effort to chase him down.

He comes over to me and starts asking me about what I know of Nigerian marriage customs. He says there are 3 classes - upper, middle and lower. Marriage between the classes is allowed only in certain combinations, but I am struggling to dollowbthe complex rules he is trying to explain. I am scared he is trying to marry me off. Then I wake up

Day 3
Breakfast: granola, stewed pineapple, banana
Lunch: chickpea curry, coleslaw, ceviche of green mango, steamed plantain

Dreams:
1.
I am on a bus with Grace and she is trying to explain where we are going. Without warning she gets off the bus and Cecilia gets on and sits down where Grace was. We look out the window and see Thu ha walking along the street. We wave to her but she doesn't see us. Soon we see her again and we discuss how she could be walking so fast to be in front of the bus route.

Then I get off the bus and I am at Central station looking at the timetable boards. It is 1849 and the next train is in 4 minutes. I wonder if I have enough time to go to the toilet, then I wake up.

2. I don't recall the dream now but the keywords I wrote were: crocodile race, black period, smoke, camera to capture

Day 4
Breakfast: granola, melon, milky chai
Lunch: vegetable lentil curry, rice, tomato & cucumber salad

Dream:
I am on level 7 in POW private but I don't recognise the exact place. I am alone in an office with plush armchairs. Suddenly DC comes in and asks me brusquely what I am doing there. I say in a meek soft voice - I am here to wait for instructions.

He doesn't reply but leaves the room. I see a fridge and get up to see what is inside. I suddenly remember I have put noodles in the fridge and start looking through the shelves to find my noodles. But they are lost.

The dream cuts to the seaside and Shabai and I are standing on a cliff. She urges me to climb over a fence and stand right on the edge. As I stand there the clouds are super low and the sky is dark. The wind is howling and I look down to violent waves many metres below. Shabai says that there is gold in the ocean and throws me a fishing net to try and catch the gold. I feel slightly resentful that she is trying to get me to do such a dangerous thing, but I throw the net into the sea. First I get just rocks, then after a few throws I see a glimmer of gold. The wind is blowing even more strongly in my ears and I sway violently as I wave to Shabai that I found gold. Then I wake up.

Day 5:
Breakfast: beans and tortillas. candied oranges
Lunch: leftover pasta, leftover salad, pumpkin with cinnamon and cardamom

Dream:
This was a truly psychedelic one.
I am in the future. I am driving some vehicle when I crash into a wall. I am crumpled inside the car but I climb out through the window and see that I was driving an orange Ford fiesta. I shake my head at the ridiculousness and start walking away.

Then a police hovercraft shows up and shines bright lights on me. The policemen look like robots and have wooden legs. They shout at me in an unintelligible language and I start running. The light follows me but I duck into a crevice and find my escape through a dark alley.

Then I am within a dark round castle and the time is night. I walk around the castle tending to books - I am a librarian? People come in and ask to see certain things. I suggest books and read them out to people. After a while I realise that I am the only person left in the world that can read, and hence I am tending the only books left in the world.

Then I meet a man who keeps coming in asking to see images of the past, of my generation. After many encounters he becomes my confidante and ally. He says that the must be some way for me to find my way back to my real world. We spend many moments whispering in the dark corners of the library.

The dream cuts back to the city where I crashed the fiesta. The darkness prevails and I am walking the streets holding the hand of the man. He urges me to remember anything about where the fiesta crashed. I can't remember anything and feel really distraught.

Then I see Lego on the ground and something lights up in my brain - that's it! one of the clues. I see a Lego duplo store and point it out, but my friend looks at me blankly and I realise he can't read. Then I see a dark wine bar full of candles and realise that this is the gateway. I look up and see a wooden plaquard - the 8 ways McGlover.

I suddenly remember that I hid a silver suitcase up on the second floor so we head up the dark stairs. Under one of the tables we find the silver suitcase and with much anticipation I open it.

Inside there is a bed of fruit and on it, a sleeping baby.

This is the last real baby in the world, I think to myself. Then I wake up.

Images from Dhamma Bhumi

A path at Dhamma Bhumi

The first 5 days, the sky was an impeccable blue with not a trace of cloud. The heat was almost bothersome in the afternoon, though mornings and evenings remained crisp. Sunsets seemed to go on forever - even when returning to our rooms at 9pm, a trace of orange remained on the horizon, almost like the sunsets one sees on an aeroplane.

On the 6th day, clouds started moving in over the Megalong valley and by evening, the sky was filled with volcanic like clouds. At sunset, the sun was partially hidden by the clouds, showing just 3 distinct streaks of light through the grey.

On the 7th day, it began to rain. The whole centre was covered with sheets of mist drifting languidly. The rain was so soft that the droplets felt almost imperceptible. The smell of rain in the bush is pure and unadulterated, as if we were truly living in the wild.

After that, we woke everyday to heavy fog. One could only see as far as the first row of trees at breakfast time, and visibility stretched slowly until one could just make out the edge of the plateau by lunchtime. The valley seemed sleepy with rain then, as if pausing while the bush had a good drink. It continued to rain lightly for the rest of my time there, everything got soggy but it didn't seem to matter.

 

Morning fog across the valley, from outside A block

The walking tracks have been updated since I was last there - the surface stability has improved and there's now a solid little loop around which we walked endlessly during breaks. The main pond has been filled in and turned into a 40,000L capacity rainwater tank which is awesome, since the centre is now mostly self reliant for water and only occasionally goes onto Sydney Water. The side pond under the verandah is now the only pond, but this has been lovingly tended and was full of beautiful water lilies. Who knew that liles go to sleep at night as well, and open up during the day?

The pond.

A lot of work has gone into the landscaping around the centre. While at the centre, gardeners were planting flowers around the female entrance to the main hall and the pagoda. One day we came out of the hall to the sight of dozens of flower pots, which mysteriously got planted bit by bit while we were meditating.

Near the female entrance to the pagoda.

I particularly love these "rock roses" which seem so sturdy and all-weather.

Silence makes one appreciate so many things that one would normally. It makes one realise how much idle chatter there is in life, and how we miss so much because our minds are distracted. The beauty of birds gliding across the sky, of softly falling leaves, of the scent of fresh rain.. it's lovely that I had another opportunity to ponder all this.

Vipassana: food and dreams (part 2)

Day 5
Shepherd pie, greens with mushrooms, coleslaw. Quinoa biscuit (who knew quinoa could be used in biscuits!)

In this dream, I am at UNSW but it has turned into a giant Woolworths. I am strolling the aisles when there is an announcement being made that there is a closing special. I look up and there are fishnets of goodies suspended from the ceiling, and they are about to be released upon us.

The first special is - Brindabella cheese for $3.69! Random bits of stuff fall from the ceiling and I pick them up to examine them - but they are roast tofu, and tuna with beans. Then my dad comes towards me with a ginormous slab of violet crumble and he has taken a single bite out of the corner.

Too sweet! He says. Can I swap you for a savoury one?
You have diabetes! You can't eat that. I scream silently and wake up

Day 6
Leftover day, with vegetables + peanut sauce and the best dessert - sticky date pudding with proper caramel sauce, and home made kiwi mint gelato

In this dream I am standing in the dark facing a huge bridge, sort of like the Anzac bridge but not quite. I understand inherently that I need to visit two people - both Shirley and Elaine have moved into two buildings one on each side of the bridge. They look like super fancy mega apartment buildings, and I remember that Elaine was telling me about the apartment she lives in. She had said that they could see the Sharp building from their apartment, which is completely made of gold bricks and you could see every single one glimmering.

I start to walk across the bridge, thinking I'll visit whoever's on the other end of the bridge first and visit the one on this end when I come back. At the other end I briefly enter a pedestrian tunnel before coming out on the surface of the bridge again. There I see trails of fresh blood on the ground and I wonder what is happening. Then I see a flight of stairs and an old lady slowly climbing down the stairs. Blood is dripping down her leg.

Are you ok? I go up to her and ask.
She looks at me silently and I see her leg, grossly swollen and distorted. It looks like it's about to explode, and suddenly pus bursts forth from the surface.

The old lady's two sons come rushing to her and I say to them she has necrotising fasciitis and has to go to the hospital straight away! They nod solemnly and start helping her up the stairs.

Then Shelley comes out of nowhere and says, where are you! everyone has been waiting for you to come and make up the deficit in the bookstore. We need you to pay an extra $5 so that we can keep the bookstore open for another day. I am confused and wake up.

Day 7
Roast vegetable tofu stew. Orange yoghurt poppy seed cake. 
This dream is just a glimpse. I am standing in my Kingsford place and there are water tracks everywhere. Someone has managed to put foot tracks all over the walls and I wonder who managed to climb up to walk upside down on the ceiling. I can't close the door either and the wind is howling. Suddenly my dad appears in the doorway pushing a bicycle, and my grandma also appears but she is much younger with curled hair.


Day 8
Cheesy pasta bake. Sprout salad. Sago pudding with cardamom.
This was the most vivid fantastical dream I had the whole course.  

In this dream Grace and I are standing on Anzac Parade near the intersection of Middle St. It is bustling as usual and there seem to be a lot of cars around. She says that she has to go soon, but will go with me to pick up my takeaway dinner. We go into this restaurant I don't recognise and it is dark inside. All we can see is the single cash register, though people seemed to be seated and eating in the darkness.

That will be $23.20 please. The girl at the cash register says. I start giving her money but realise that all the denominations are Chinese money.

That's ok, you can pay with Chinese money. She says and takes the notes from my hand. Then she looks furtively around her, leans across the register and whispers. Please, can you help me? I am trapped here, they are keeping me as a slave.

Suddenly two men come out from the darkness and tell us to go, basically pushing us outside. Once outside I ask Grace what she should do, and she says she wants to go home. So we wait on the side of the road for a taxi, but the road seems to be now completely clogged with cars showing bright blue lights. There are no taxis and after what seems like a long time, she gives up and says that maybe we should just go have dinner.

We decide to go back to the restaurant where we were and this time I see the sign: Congolese cuisine. This is so exciting! She says, I've never tried Congolese food before!

We sit down in the darkness, and I start thinking about how we can help the girl. I lament not having discussed some sort of plan before we came into the restaurant, but now it's too late. As my eyes adjust to the darkness I see there are several tables of men eating silently around us.

Towards the back of the restaurant there are two chefs working in the open kitchen. Next to one of them is a stake, and two black calves are tied to the stake. They have a desperate look in their eyes like please don't eat me! I am about to be eaten!

I tell Grace that maybe we should go, because the restaurants kills such poor little baby animals. She tells me to relax, but then I notice that all around us, there are racks and racks of animal carcasses. The stench of old, foul blood hits me at once and then I realise, the blood is dripping onto us. Then I wake up.


Day 9
Fried rice noodles with tofu and vegetables. Watermelon salad with mint. 
I am driving along Woodville Rd with Cindy and Shelley in the car. They seem to have regressed in age and we are talking like we are teenagers, something like.
What do you want to eat?
What do YOU want to eat?
I want to eat whatever you want to eat.

As I drive along I realise we still have to pick someone else up, but I have no idea who and I have no idea where we are going. I try to get Cindy & Shelley to organise their thought towards where we are actually going to eat, but they start arguing about which flavour of lipsmackers is best and I can't interrupt them.

Then there is a sign. This is the last turnoff. And a very long right turn lane. I don't go into the lane but ask them again and again where we are going - then I realise the road is going to end and that is the end.

Day 10.
Lasagne. Peanut butter date balls.
Amazingly, I have no dreams on the last night.
 

Vipassana: food and dreams (part 1)

Day 0
Vegetable soup

Two brief dreams.   
In the first, Kai is holding a paper cutout (of the Chinese kind) of a complex diagram which I don't recognise. He's trying to explain all the components of the diagram but it seems to get more and more complicated. Then he starts unfolding the paper (which is black) and each segment becomes another paper cutout which is red in colour. When he finishes unfolding the whole thing is huge, about the size of a tablecloth. I realise with a start that it is the guide to how the body works.

In the second, I dream that my dad has a pleural effusion and he is seeing a terrible GP who is telling him that he must drink more water to get rid of the effusion. Possibilities run through my head - cancer? TB? I feel angry towards the GP like I want to punch him. The violence, and the potential devastation of the underlying diagnosis, wake me up.


Day 1
Vegetable lentil stew, sesame coated curry balls.

Again 2 dreams.

I'm standing on broadway near UTS and the sky is overcast (in reality that day it was sunny and blue during the day). The clouds are grey and looming, and I feel that it is going to rain. I'm not carrying a bag of any kind and I feel in my pockets for some change so I can catch the bus. I find only a single $10 note and remember anyway that you can't buy a ticket on the bus anymore. I decide to start walking home.

As I walk home it starts to sprinkle, but it's not particularly unpleasant so I keep walking. As I get to the corner of Cleveland St, a girl approaches me and asks me some questions which I can't remember. I go with her to her place, where there is an old man sitting in the dark, looking miserable. I start talking to him while the girl is making some hot drinks for us. He is depressed and desolate, and I'm trying to cheer him up by talking about when he was young. After a while he looks up and says, you think I want to be here? I'm not even this girl's father! But I must stay here and look after her. I am shocked and wake up

In the second dream, I am standing in the lobby of a tall apartment building which I don't recognise. The mailman comes out of the lift and asks me if I want to go get dinner. I say that I want to go by myself, so I set off alone and it is very dark outside. After walking for some time without any direction, I come to a street full of lights and I recognise that it is the main street in Shanghai, Nanjing Rd. I walk along this road looking for a restaurant but I can't find any - which frustrates me no end as I know there are heaps of places to eat along this road. Eventually I decide to go back to the mailman's place, but I can't find my way back to the apartment. I linger near the intersection where I think the road is, and eventually I find a small doorway with a glimmer of light amongst the darkness. Through the doorway I enter a little room, manned by two people, an old man and an old woman. They ask me how much I want to pay and I ask them why I have to pay. You have to pay to leave this place, don't you understand? So I take out my wallet and try to give them some money, but every note I take out is blue (there are no blue Chinese notes) and I can't pay them with any of them! So I wake up.


Day 2
Vegetable curry, plain dal and rice. Apple crumble.
I dream that I am inducing anaesthesia for a patient, who appears to be a fit young man. After the drugs, I intubate him and everything seems to be going well, yet the oxygen saturation alarm keeps going down and down. I turn around and see that the sats are 70%. I turn the flows up and bag him hard, but the Sats keep going down and they are now 50%. He starts going blue - I take out the tube, mask ventilate him hard, but the Sats keep dropping and they are now 30%. Then I realise that the oxygen connection has been disconnected at the wall, but it's too late and the patient dies.


Day 3
Kidney bean curry, roasted eggplant. Date slice.
I'm showing a couple around this apartment which I have apparently chosen for them. The apartment is bound on all sides by massive glass windows and it is night time outside. I recognise the skyline as being that of Auckland, and I wonder why I have chosen this place.

Going into each room, I feel so pleased with the setting of the place. Everything - the walls, the carpet, the decor - seems perfect, and I realise that this is my ideal place. I start looking around to try to remember what it is about the place that I like. And then I overhear the couple arguing about whether they should take the place or not, because it's too expensive at $450/week. At that moment I'm in the bedroom and there is a rustic bookshelf  over the top of the bed - what a great idea! I think, you can read whatever you want before bed. And the bookshelves are stacked full of cookbooks that I want to read too.

The couple come into the bedroom and say to me that they need some time to consider. In the mean time they said they wanted to meet up with their other friends for dessert at Mr Wong's, a new dessert bar that has opened up in the city. I go with them, and it is a dark smoky trendy bar serving all sorts of drinks. When our dessert is served, I realise with a start that it is stir fried celery with pieces of lung.


Day 4 
Tofu curry, bok choy, beetroot & carrot salad. 

On this day, I have two extremely vivid dreams.

I am walking along the corridor in some public building (looks like a government building) and suddenly someone ahead of me collapses. I run to him and it is a middle aged man. I start doing CPR on him and call for someone to get an ambulance. A woman walks past and introduces herself as a nurse. She starts doing CPR while I go to the head end and get ready to do ventilations. The next moment I realise that the compressions have stopped and the woman is answering her phone, honey sorry I can't talk right now, I'm really busy... and I want to shout at her, don't stop the compressions!

A man with an ipad walks past and says he can tell what the underlying rhythm is using a new app. The man appears to be in pulseless VT, but there's no way we can shock him! I tell the nurse to keep doing CPR while I start thinking about where an automated defibrillator might be kept. Then I hear gurgling noises and I realise that the middle aged man has turned into a really old lady, who is not dead at all, but she's too weak to protest the CPR.

In the other dream, I am a homeless person and I live in a derelict rubble-filled building along with some other homeless friends. One of them tells me that the building we are in is due to be taken down soon, so we have to move somewhere. Across the road there are two buildings under construction, and we decide to move there. Another man pipes up and says that he has met a woman who wants to look after him on the 20th floor of the building on the right. We look carefully at the buildings and agree that we will each make our way there in teams of two and meet up on the 20th floor with our friend and his girlfriend. As we run across the road, I am distinctly aware of how dirty my clothes are.

My partner and I approach the building on the right, but realise you need an access card to enter. I have one but my partner doesn't, so we decide to enter the building on the left. I look at my access card and I am a blonde woman (I've forgotten the name!) with the job title TV presenter. How ridiculous, I think in the dream. We get in the lift and press 20. As it goes up we discuss how we are going to jump from this building to the next building - then the door opens and it is like the apocalypse outside.

The wind is howling, the sun is bright red and the dust is gritty in our eyes. We shield our faces from the dust storm and try to see where we are going. This is not going to work! I shout to my partner but I can't even see one foot in front of me so I have no idea where he is. I try to grope along the wall to feel where the lift is, but I can't. Eventually I stumble into a wall and with much relief, feel the cool steel of the lift door under my fingers. My partner is standing right next to me at that moment and we wait for the lift to come again. When the door opens we rush in, and then we realise that it's too late to get out and the lift is completely broken. It starts sinking with a rush and I think this is it, I'm going to die. Then it slams to a stop and the floor starts to crumble. We scramble madly onto a corner and hold onto the metal ropes holding the remnants of the lift together. It falls further and I scream. Sparks start to fizzle everywhere now, and I don't know where to put my hands or feet. Then I wake up.