A spiritual odyssey into a dreamscape where a poet hero sets forth to rescue the bride of his soul.

"Dream wood alludes to several myths– Hippolytus, Apollo, Sisyphus, and Narcissus are seen passing in the background of different scenes, but these allusions become witty intrusions into the otherwise thoroughly personalized vision... No single film in the whole of American avant-garde comes as close as this one to the source of trance film, Cocteau's Le Sand d'Un Poet." - P. Adams Sitney in Visionary Film.

James Broughton wrote:
Somewhere there is a forest
somewhere at the center of the world
there is a forest of the dream,
a sacred wood, a grove of initiation.
Somewhere there is what there has always been:
the treasure hard to attain,
the lair of the Great Goddess,
the bed of the ultimate rapture.

Somewhere (at the center of the world) there is an island called Animandra, or the Kingdom of Her. And somewhere in the wilds of Animandra there is a magic wood known as Broceliande, the Perilous Forest. Within this labyrinthine grove the dream wood mysteries take place, the tests, the encounters, the rites of the Goddess in her many forms. Only a hero dares risk his life by entering the realm of the feminine powers. And most heroic is the poet, perhaps guided as he is (and taunted) by that blessed damozel, his muse, whose name is Alchemina. Ordinary men remain safely outside in the dry meadows of their masculine games. But to the main who conquers his fear, persists in his quest and wins her favor, the Goddess of Dreamwood will reveal her greatest secret.

This homage to Cocteau flows from my own poet's blood and unfolds in the cadences of mythic ritual. In the summer of 1970 John Schofill brought his Arriflex from the Chicago Art Institute to make images of fierce clarity for my apparitional narrative. For the rites of initiation we created a sacred wood in Mount Tamalpais State Park, not without harassment from the rangers. Kermit assisted me throughout, Henry Taylor endured the poet's trials valiantly, and Morton Subotnik supplied the music.