A Sea Dream starts with the principle character, Mikey, half waking with a dream about him being a pig in a pig sty trying to jump a fence but failing though luckily finding a carrot before the other pigs see it. He awakes next to his lady but doesn’t really recognise her nor his own body as she is a Black woman and he finds that he is a Black man, not the White man he was assuming he was.

They go to a movie across the street from a barbeque shop that he identifies with and longs for being over there with the boys. In the movie, old Black comedies, the presence of policemen who stop the film and ordering people out causes fights and Mikey finds himself almost beating a man to death who was trying to steal his wallet after hitting him with a brick. Mikey starts crying and while being soothed by his woman he remembers his grand mother, Big Mama, who had died and he falls into more remorse.

Mikey scrambled to the staked fencing, hoof-clawing at the sides of the enclosure without success. He did not want to be on this side. Not really knowing why he did not want to be here was a fleeting thought as he tried to jump the fence’s height. He could not even get half way up but he tried several more times before giving up and laying there in the trodden clumps of mud. A half of a carrot was sticking almost straight up right near his head. The green top was slightly bent by a cake of old mud. He gobbled it before the others saw it and was satisfied to lay and digest. But, first he looked around for more… then lay back, cooling his stomach in the smoothed rut he had made by falling so many times. He rolled to the left and rolled to the right and fell out of the bed, banging his elbow and dropping his cigarette from his lips, and he exclaimed an ouch.

‘Keep quiet, you. I’s tryin’ ta get some sleep after all dat lovin’ yer puts me true…’.