Just to let you know three quick associations I have:

First, the water streaming out of the body brings to mind the image of Christ on the cross and the stream of water that issued from the body when struck by a spear in his side.

Second, the number 8, in addition to being your chapter number, is, of course, a moebius image.

Third, I am struck here by the powers of photography that you cite in your extended remarks.

[John Dotson has been working on a project involving photography.]

….Further dream resonances (June 30, 2009):

I was walking along the beach tonight. The image of the fountain flowing from the forehead came to me. I imagined again the Christ aspect. And further, then, the thought that the “bizarreness” that you allude to in the image may indeed be a crucial element, or perhaps the most crucial.

As you probably also have experienced, often the most paradoxical and bizarre element in a dream is the most significant.

What I feel in all this is an enormous–to the point of unbearable–contradiction. As if something could snap, or has snapped, in this apparition.

…New association (July 2, 2009):

Steven’s dream image of the fountain flowing from the forehead now suggests to me an old alchemical image of a fountain from the Rosarium Philosophorum: