Your e-mail message:

"Hi Mr. Perez,

"This was my dream with the kapre. I used to have a 
written account, which I wrote on the day I woke up, 
but have lost it. This is what I remember of it:

"It began at our house. I am on the second floor, in 
my mother's room. It is night but the lights in the 
room are on. They are yellowish. In her room, a 
meeting of an NGO I used to be part of is being held 
there. I am in the meeting and worksheets are being 
handed out.

"I stepped out and entered what should have been 
our bathroom, beside my mother's room, but instead 
I found an office with some people working inside. 
The floor, walls and ceilings were made of old, 
chipped white tiles. These are not the tiles of our 
bathroom. The furniture of this office was old as well
and beginning to dilapidate. I did something here 
which I do not remember anymore. It was daytime 
in this room. The people here were using natural 
light from the windows.

"I stepped out. I go out of our house and out of our 
gate and onto the street. It is nighttime and very 
dark. The only source of light was the streetlamp 
above, and it was emitting a yellow light. Still, I 
could not make out our neighbor's houses, only 
mine and the surrounding trees.

"There was a chair and photocopying machine in 
the middle of the street. I take the worksheets I 
obtained from the NGO meeting, and proceeded 
to photocopy them.

"After some time a young woman emerged from 
the darkness of the street. She was a mestisa, with 
short brown hair and glasses. I did not recognize 
her, but knew instinctively that she was a neighbor. 
She was happy, and was in a sweatshirt and 
sweatpants, as if she had been doing a late night 
jog around the subdivision. She was carrying a tea 
light candle. She walked up and tells me, "may 
kapre," then proceeds to the unoccupied lot beside 
our house, where there is a forest.

"Suddenly, I was filled with panic. I did not wait for 
the mestisa lady to completely disappear into the 
forest. I rushed back inside our house. Inside it is 
daytime and very bright, and my mother's 
room and bathroom were back to normal—no more 
NGO meeting or office. I looked for my mother and 
told her that there was a kapre in our house. She did 
not believe me. I rushed back outside to the street, 
where it was night again. The street lamp was still 
on. I did this several times, running back and forth 
from inside our house where it was day, and out 
onto the street where it is night.

"Finally I decided to simply go to sleep. I went 
inside our house, where it was day, and climbed up 
the stairs to my room. I lay in bed but suddenly 
panic again. I could feel the kapre's presence but 
could not see it. However I knew that it is white, 
which was odd. I started to imagine what it might 
look like but really, I could not see it. It was then 
that I felt it touching me rather sexually in my bed. 
I became filled with intense fear and it was then 
that I wake up, where it is daytime for real.

"In reality as well, the unoccupied lot in my dream 
has already been purchased within the last two 
years. The trees cut down, and a white house had 
been put up. I had this dream when the house had 
been standing but had notyet been occupied for 
several months.

"This is why I think the kapre of my dream and the 
one my maid was referencing to may not be the 
same as the one that is rumored to live in our 
mango tree. I think this kapre might have come 
from that lot beside us, but had moved into our 
house, since my dream had a reference to that 
place. I think it is trying to send a message. It also 
confuses me why it was touching me sexually in 
my dream.

"Other than that dream and the ashes in our sala, 
there had been no other recent instances involving 
a kapre.

"Thank you and good night, I will tell you of my 
other dreams in the next few days."

My reply:

Hello ____!

Dreaming that you are on an upper floor indicates that the message 
is from your Freudian superego or your Jungian Higher Self. The 
bathroom with chipped tiles is a metaphorical venue for 
self-cleansing. You do not recall what you did inside because 
the embarrassing memory is being repressed. On or around the 
time of the dream, you must have done something unacceptable to 
others, and wished to delete it not only from your own memory 
but also from the memory of other people.

The use of a photocopying machine indicates a mechanical 
following of other people's instructions. In making up for past 
remissions, you did what other people expected you to do, 

instead of what you should have done as an act of the heart.

You are the mestiza in the dream, as you are also your mother in 
the dream. Your mind dissociated and you came face to face 
with the person you wished you were. This person, the second 
you, told you of the presence of the kapre--not a real kapre in 
this scenario but something dark, horrifying, and haunting in 
your life. The need for cleansing now becomes the need to avoid 
or get rid of a kapre, because the need for cleansing hurts more. 
In this dream, however, they mean one and the same thing.

The fluctuations between day and night indicate that you are torn 
between two things, most probably self-control and a giving in to 
urges. The kapre is white because it is female. Could this dream 
be about lesbian tendencies?

An empty lot that becomes a lot with a white house summarizes 
the entire message. In a dream, a house symbolizes a mind or a 
mindset. In this dream the white house is the heaven-house of

females. The dream, therefore, is both an anxiety dream and a 
wish-fulfillment dream, the desire to build a new mind or a new 
mentality.

My advice is, follow your heart. It will keep you happy, and, at 
the end of your life, you will pass away with few regrets.