Wednesday, September 22, 2010

red trucks and old photographs

i ought to be doing my homework, but instead i must record this dream.

i was back in my childhood last night. or, not exactly my childhood, but in a state of youngness, if that makes sense. i felt younger. i was in a place that was not mt. riga, but it was like that, but only because there was a house on a lake, and it was familiar. dad and kornelya and jalom were there, so that also doesn't make sense if it was "the past."

but at any rate, dad gave me old photographs he had found, and when i looked at them, i was surprised to see they were photos of me and my childhood best friend, annalise. looking at them made me suddenly recall memories i had not thought about for a long time, and yet, when i recall the images on the dream photographs, i can't say that they were tied to any real life memories.

it was rainy in that dream, and we had a canoe that we'd dragged up out of the lake and were storing under the house. inside the house was dark, but decorated everywhere with fairy lights and various plug-in decorative kitschy items.

in another part of my dream, i'm in a black pinstripe suit and i'm back at my old job, just about to leave, but i realize that the monitor to my computer is missing from my desk, and i don't want to leave before i figure out where it went, or else the new guy coming in to replace me won't have a monitor. i hunt around to try and find it and encounter some woman who i guess is the HR person, but she isn't helpful.

i give up, and am going to go down the hall to join a meeting but i realize they don't really need me for it since i'm leaving, so i keep walking down the hall, and incidentally this building looks like the basement floor to an office park, and when i turn a corner to the left, i see that there is a huge crowd of people swelling through the hallway, trying to get down a staircase.

there is also, really and truly, a big red truck that is amongst the throng and trying to make its way down the stairs. i run over to the crowd, feeling curious, piteous, and obliged to help. i get in the truck and, "driving" try to manœver it down the stairs…but of course, it won't fit. i feel a bit frustrated, but then, what would they have me do? they thank me for trying anyway.

i feel that there were other elements to this dream, but i can't remember them. analysis?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I would say that it's about transitioning to a new identity.

The photos and the monitor suggest "how you looked at things" first with your family as a kid and second in your role at your former job. You are now walking past the latter and farther down the corridor into the unknown.

Another dyad is the canoe and the red truck. Both are associated with the depths of the unconscious: one dragged up from the lake, the other headed down the stairs.

The canoe is relegated to the basement of the house, consigned to the past: that particular method of navigating your course is no longer afloat.

You try to drive the truck, but you cannot. The process whereby some aspects of self flow down into the unconscious to make space for new stimuli and responses is beyond your control. You cannot "drive" the process of being changed by your new circumstances.

Jim H

Agatha Wells said...

hmm this is an interesting analysis, Jim. it probably has a lot of validity. i'll have to think about my present state further to see how exactly this fits in, but it makes sense.

hope all is well with you! thanks for reading :)

it's not just for the classroom!