Gillette: A Dream Symbol

by Diane Sprague

Gillette exists within the layers. Each layer becomes darker. Only by descending or ascending the steps that take us into the black world of something other than what we think we are can we approach her. She exists in the unreachable heights or the unfathomable depths. Although she seems so far away, a spooky stillness settles in all the surroundings she touches. Disguised as death, a corpse, a feeble old woman, a murderer, and a monster, she reveals no secrets and only leaves her calling card. It reads: I am a mystery. Come follow me into the dark layers.

In the world of light, the spookiness passes. I have only the unchosen world I can see and feel, but it cannot be changed to my liking. So I look into the darkness. I reach out for my elusive symbol, Gillette. She is frightening beyond words, and yet, she comforts me with her existence. Her world is a world I would choose. I would choose it without knowledge of what I am choosing, but with the awareness that, for the first time, it is truly myself who is doing the choosing.

She is undeniably dangerous. In one dream, she attempts to strangle me. It is a desperate struggle, but I survive. In another dream, she is a nuclear bomb. She is ready to destroy and I find that fleeing is futile. In yet another dream, she is a cold, solid corpse that comes back to life with the knowledge that no one should ever have, and she threatens to flood the world with the unspeakable, numinosity of death.

So why don’t I turn my back on her, flee from her, and deny her? Why do I often feel that, in my forced world of the conscious, she is the salvation from what I would never choose? Perhaps, because she once leaped from her deathbed and became a young, vibrant, and beautiful woman who laughed at me. Or perhaps it is because in a dream which contained an amazing flip-flopping of identities, she became a writer I admire and then she shot a wicked glance at me and told me that she was me.

That is a rather peculiar idea. We think our identity lies in the strange creature that inhabits our world of consciousness, but perhaps, our true identity lies in the darkness of what we don’t even know. And yet we do know a little. It appears, at least, that I know enough to follow my symbol into the darkness. I know I would choose Gillette. She is a mystery; she can be wicked, dangerous, and cruel, but she also laughs at me and offers the possibility of a world I would choose. She exists in the unimaginable layers and tells me that is where I belong, so I reach for her even when the layers become too dark and the numinous becomes too strong. She is my mystery and she is my choice.