Below are photos of the artist taken May 2000. The grotto with the Easter Bunny is located on 1st Street in Manhattan Beach about two blocks from the ocean.

I began writing down dreams in notebooks in 1971, in college, around the time the dream craze began with Ann Faraday, Patricia Garfield, and other dream gurus. The notebooks go back 30 years with some gaps. A few dreams have been lucid such as the one when I was four and suddenly woke up in the barn with Indians in breechcloths fighting with tomahawks all around me. And the one on New Years Day 1986 when I was standing outside my apt building and talked to a man dressed like a New Years baby -- naked with ribbon. His voice was loud and metallic and I had difficulty hearing and exhaustion for a few days after that.

"Expert dreamers" are a tradition, at least in the collective consciousness. Patricia Garfield's research on Senoi (Malaya highlands) was discredited and she addressed that problem in her recent new edition of her book. She had stated that the Senoi discussed their dreams every morning and modified their dreams to include facing enemies or monsters. The Huron American Indian tribe in the 13 Colonies area of the USA had a similar dream centered society. Most societies have Shamans who use dreams in their work with their clients and fellow citizens.

The purpose of dreaming is to become lucid or (Jung) to dream the future of our society and/or to improve your life and ultimately to prepare for death. The various Books of the Dead describe a dreamlike condition.

It is tiring to constantly try to maintain alertness even while asleep so as to remember the quiet dream, the things people say, the things you read and numbers. The semi-lucid dream includes knowing that you are dreaming, but watching what you do anyway. One example is my New Year's 2000 dream of being up on the giant earthmover in Irian Jaya at the Freeport gold and copper mine. The question was, since I knew I was dreaming, how do I get down. The earthmover was about one-two stories high. I thought, this is just a dream, but it couldn't go on to something else, because I was "awake" in the dream. I thought about jumping since it was just a dream, but I've had knife cuts to my hands in dreams that really hurt (I could feel.) I finally compromised by turning around so I couldn't see the ground and jumping off backwards after hanging from my hands.

I also turned and faced a monster calmly in a dream, and it passed right through me like a wisp of fog.

I read the Carlos Casteneda books when they came out and tried to "look at my hands" and notice impossible details to wake up in the dream or become lucid. I have had two completely lucid dreams. In both I was outside my apt building, on two different sides of it, the north (around New Years 1988) and the east (New Years eve 1997.)In neiher one did I make it back to the apt to see my body asleep. I don't know how I would have made it through the doors - but I've "practiced" trying to get up my nerve to "dive" through walls in some subsequent dreams.

Sheila Heldenbrand Toth

St. Patrick's Day Parade in Hermosa Beach, CA. March 2000.