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January, 2015

4 13 16 21


1/4/15 - Title: "On the Road Again"

I am living alone in a cheap motel down the road from a large mall, but with all around a number of other unfamiliar and sometimes heavily trafficked roads and, at other nearby times/places, completely unused, abandoned roads, their sides grown in with sagebrush or other dried plant debris. Not having had anything interesting or very social to do here for awhile, I set off on foot toward the mall. I've seen a KFC shop (eatery) and thought I'd like to try a meal there. The mall would also probably be a good, more interesting place to go and shop or just walk around.

I quickly get lost and am not sure how to get back to where I am staying. Nor is it clear how to go forward to reach the mall or anywhere else useful.

I find myself on a completely unused roadway that may never have been finished. I do not even come to it in the normal way but by striking out from where I was already lost, going between roads in an abandoned, unused area, wild with old, dead growth, itself dry and often sharp and cutting. It comes away in clumps as I try to hold onto it while going up the sides or banks of a section of unused road.

I am afraid of snakes at the base of these thick, dried, brambly clumps of vegetation (for at the base of the dried plants it is dark and damp), yet so far have not seen any.

Am no longer sure I'm even on a road that leads toward a mall or how far the walk may be before I reach it, if the mall will really be in business when I might get there, or how to return to my temporary place if I do eventually get to it. There is nobody around to ask. The whole situation is lonely, frustrating, nerve-wracking, saddening, and very confusing. The road I'm on seems relatively new, made of concrete, but completely abandoned, unused, grown-in.

[I think a big part of the dream reflects feelings about a personality difference with a rather adversarial lady, April, in my mystery book club. She has now - after a period of hostile disagreement with me (in which each of us thinks he/she is right, and that the other is in the wrong) - decided to leave our group, though she'd been in it longer than I. Besides feeling badly about April leaving, the situation is complicated by uncertainty the group will still be viable in her absence, for she is friends with others in the group, often meeting with them socially, and the others may also now not want to still be in the group or be as committed to it.

Of April, I'd say she is feisty, smart, and amusing. Not a great, but also not a terribly bad anima to have, although her tendency toward being adversarial is a problem, given that she is a part of me.

Fairly obviously, I feel abandoned, lonely, and that things are not terribly interesting. Nor am I much involved or engaged socially. There is also a fear of my feelings [the as yet unseen snakes]. Am unsure how to proceed or even if it is worthwhile to do so, considering I feel lost and unsure if there will be anything useful to find when and if I get there.

More metaphorically, the dream may be presenting me with how I am seeing the balance of my life, as the countdown proceeds toward "the end of the road." I may not, in reality as well, be sure how to go forward or if it is worthwhile doing do with so many unknowns. One does move in isolation toward one's death. Though we all do it, this is typically not an experience which can actually be shared. There may be hope for something interesting and worthwhile when that end of the journey is attained, but, intellectually at least, there is awareness that this, here and now, for however long or short a time is left, is the only reality remaining. It would be good to make the most of it, scary feelings and all. If we do, then there will, chances are, also be an end to the boredom.

"Sagebrush" is an intriguing name for the vegetation here: wise (sage) plus perhaps the idea of a brush with death. What are wise ways to approach, or take into account, one's mortality?

"Mall," besides the metaphorical suggestion of where we "go" in death, might be a pun for something, but if so as yet it escapes me. The shopping mall could as well symbolize a variety of options open to one as a person seeks to define his/her identity or get needs met, whether they are material, physical, social, emotional, spiritual, for love, etc.]

1/13/15 - Title: "A Wake-up Scold!"

I wake up and hear a rough scraping or rubbing, like I imagine Fran is making by scrubbing hard at a place on the carpet (as if Puff has upchucked or had an accident) and also a high pitched tinkling sound that I think is Puff's metal collar hitting her metal bowl in the kitchen, as occurs when she is drinking her water, immediately followed by Frances angrily "yelling" (but "softly," though loudly enough that I can easily hear her in the next room) something like: "SHUT UP! Don't you know Phil can hear you!?"

[And then I do actually wake up, alarmed, disturbed, not realizing it was a dream, and wondering what could have happened - did Puff pee or poop on the carpet or did something worse happen? - that has Fran up and this hostile, not really caring that their noise will wake me up too in the middle of the night. It is in fact a little after 4:00 AM.

I hear the tinkling sound again, now that I am truly awake, and realize it is from the wind outside blowing the chimes on our back deck.

Of Puff, I'd say she is playful, extroverted, and hedonistic. Of Fran, she is very engaged in what she enjoys doing, occasionally reactive and negative but usually helpful and pleasant. She is really smart.]

1/16/15 - Title: "Inspiring Couple"

I see my nephew, Jim, and his girl (whom I have not really met) together. She is really nice, smart, talented, funny, like him an excellent teacher and dancer. It is obvious they are very intimate, love each other, and are an excellent match. They are both good at genuinely living and being real, in the moment.

Title: "The Fateful Final"

I'm taking a final exam. The prof is this really nice guy, extremely smart, witty, well educated, charming, conscientious, doing his best with personal notes to his students, and even gifts, to relate on a personal level with each of them, but here I am at the final, too late for dropping the course, yet having missed most of the classes, not turned in the majority of the papers or even gotten or read the books, attempting to say something on this exam that may change a certain "F" into a possible "D" or even "C" grade for the entire course.

Before I buckle down to write during what little time remains, I open for the first time a couple of the bundles of things from him, returned homework or papers and what not, and see amused, well-meaning, hand-written notes, in one case also even a bunch of now obviously spoiled ice cream sandwiches (!) I might have enjoyed had I but taken the trouble to be present enough to get, at the time, what he was offering me much earlier and all along the way.

A few other students are still in the exam room with me, some finishing up, others more like me, trying to pull off at the end what they lacked in application and attendance before, though none seem as bad an example of this as me, and a couple of them (a young man and woman) see me open the ice cream package and give sympathetic "Ohh!" moans of appreciation for all that I'd missed by being so poor at my part in this student-teacher relationship.

What can I say? Would lying help? Trying to bull-shit my way into his favor? I sense I can't pull anything over on this guy. Still, in what minutes remain, what am I to write in my final blue book?

Will merely showing up at last and attempting some form of honest communication with the prof "do it" for me?

[I wake up still wondering what to write, overwhelmed with my failure to be there in any real way for the course, ashamed to have let down a terrific teacher and to have failed myself in the process, still debating if I ought to try to bull-shit my way out of this, yet knowing that's absolutely not going to work out well for me this time. Maybe nothing will work, yet all there is for me now, even if I've no idea what to say, is to write, and it is well nigh time to begin.

Of Jim, I'd say he is brilliant, a talented professional, and has a great sense of humor, an ability to live more in the moment than most people. He is also an atheist, which to me means he is a realist, not a bad shadow character to have!

His girl, as she appears in the dream and as described, is a nice anima to have as well!

The prof is perhaps a concept I have of a HP. If not, as described he is at least another very positive shadow character to have.

Am not at all sure what the ice cream sandwiches represent, but naturally there is an "I scream!" ego reaction in there. In the past, sandwiches have stood for all the trivia to be dealt with in life (sand) plus either negative anima energy (witches) or the uncertainty of how to proceed on a number of questions: "which-es," suggesting feeling inundated or overwhelmed by all the decisions and small matters to which one must attend.

It is possible the dream is also giving a forthright message: to write (creatively? in journals? other?). Or maybe that is about doing what is right, though uncertainty over what is the correct attitude or action. Am not sure.

The dream appears to be saying the ego is failing but that there is much else here that is worthwhile. Let the ego fail, and move on! Yet, even now there is a bit of hope left for the redemption of the ego. We shall see.]

1/21/15 - Title: "Almost On the Second Story"

I have been in a job setting (or job settings) that was (were) no longer right for me, working on the second story in one case, like a lot of my Texas Rehab. work was, and in the basement in the other case, like my Univ. Co-op textbook department work was. It is unclear if I have been let go, retired, quit voluntarily to seek other work, or something else, but I am now anxiously between employment situations, feeling I need a new position and income yet unsure how to secure them. I could do some kind of entry level work, but chances are I'd just feel like I was marking time and that the pay would not be enough.

I realize toward the end of the dream that I need to get into a kind of professional sales work (and in the real world this might be work as an insurance agent, financial consultant, or some other type specialty sales gig). Am a little concerned about so big a change or challenge, but pretty sure it can be managed once I apply myself to it.

There is also something about being in a two-story house, upstairs, or am on the stair steps near the top, a few down, and talking with my brother, Pete, who is upstairs in a hall area next to the bedrooms. We say something to each other about a radio that's on and about something to eat. The emotional feel is of camaraderie or mutual respect and acceptance, at least within our natural roles around each other.

[Immediately on waking up, I am relieved to realize I do not actually have to start a new career, that though our nest egg needs to be managed, it is adequate for our present and projected expenses.

Of Pete, I'd say he is smart, very convinced of his own importance, and a showman, a performer. He is also an alcoholic but in the AA 12-step program. He tends to be a perfectionist and to think others ought to live up to his standards, but is not really (himself) as perfect as he wants others to be or wants them to see him as being. He loves the limelight and getting one-up on others, feeling he's doing whatever he does at least a little better than others would do it.

The dream may partly have to do with my being - for the second time - on the Al-Anon steps and needing to do further work to still get through Steps 6 through 12. As part of that, am lately comparing certain personality shortcomings (such as those I see my Pete shadow as having) with character qualities that might replace them.

Given the references to needing income and concern that in some positions the pay would not be enough, I think the dream partly has to do with wanting ways for my life to be more rewarding or at least for me to see it as more rewarding, that the payoff is worthwhile.]

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