The following is a dream I wrote down in a notebook that I often carry around with me. The dream occurred on November 14, 1988:

The opening scene is of a man being brought home wounded. His wife thinks that he has been out fooling around with another woman, but in truth the man has been out hunting another man, a man dressed in white, a musician who works in a seedy place downtown (it seeems to be a combination drug/liquor store/restaurant), a musician who the wounded man suspects is having an affair with his wife.

The wounded husband has a wonderful talent of telling children's stories. In the dream I remember the man sitting alone in his office (he is some sort of Psychiatrist or something) telling a wonderful "Owl and the Pussycat - Pied Piper of Hamlin" type of story to himself. But this story teller has one handicap - he can only tell these wonderful stories when he is alone.

One day, for example, the man is invited to tell stories to a group of children in a sooty, old brownstone building, the kind one often sees in New York. He enters the building and climbs the heavy wooden steps to a small upstairs apartment. An old woman who lives there greets him. She gives him a cup of water, and the man stands in front of a group of children sitting on the floor, eagerly waiting for this "story master" to begin. Their mothers stand behind them, eagerly waiting, too.

The man begins a story, and then stops. A long awkward silence follows. He continues the story and fails miserably. When he has an audience his stories come out extremely boring. At the end, everyone feels embarrassed for the man, especially the children.

I don't remember why the man came back wounded or what happened to the musician. Everything in the dream faded before the story ended. . .