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March, 2021
12I am hiking in an area of cold, white water. The current is powerful. I'm in a place where the formation is lower than the prevailing ground level, the raging waters nearby and just a little lower still. There is a small opening to the ground level, and I am only a few feet inside this semi-cavern from it, when the earth and rock around me shift from the force of rising waters, and I am caught, from the waste (waist) and lower chest down, while the churning waters are still going higher. If I do not get free, I am imminently going to drown. I try with all my strength but remain stuck. I call for help, hoping someone will hear me through the small opening and be able to pull me to safety, yet the odds of such a rescue in time seem small.
[Thus far, am not getting a good sense of what this dream is about beyond the obvious. There is some circumstance about which I feel I am recently stuck and which threatens the ego or small-self identity. Part of me is cold, which suggests detachment from emotions. Yet I am also, perhaps in another part, raging. "Hiking" suggests progress has been occurring on my course through life, at least prior to my feeling caught. The water or current would seem to be my emotions, which here are powerful. There is, though, a new sense of instability. The formation that had been there as something solid, reliable, has essentially dissolved around me under the pressure of strong feelings. The ego is in danger of being drowned by powerful reactions. Aspects of life that are normally disregarded, out of view, below ground and/or considered to be mere waste now have me in their grip. "Churning" suggests perhaps obsessing about negative possibilities. To be caught in one's chest suggests an inability to breath as well as might be wished, another way in which emotions cannot be fully expressed or are felt to be overwhelming. "Lower," "small," and "level" are repeated. There evidently is a sense of diminishment, of things being out of balance, beneath, less than, or no longer level, and of the impact of forces below that I normally do not have consider. On its own, the small-self identity is not strong enough to restore free agency and, wily-nilly, will succumb to things not under its control unless rescued, which, however, is unlikely to occur, so this ego is probably going to die, which may be a good thing, permitting a new, better adjusted identity to take its place, one that takes account of the strong, inner, subterranean forces that often rule us more than we wish to acknowledge in a blinkered, "rational," defense mechanism protected consciousness. Also, a big shift is taking place. "Opening" is also repeated. There is a sense that an awareness is dawning.
While the above analyses seem appropriate, in fact I do not have an understanding of what from my normal, waking life might have occasioned such a dream. Objectively, things appear much as they have for several days, weeks, or months prior to this dream. Is there something the dreaming self knows that as yet I do not?
On a little further reflection, however, it is easy to see that, if not rescued, the protagonist in the dream will effectively be buried a few feet beneath ground level, which, being mortal, is of course often the fate of people at the ends of their lives. Lately my cardiologist, with whom I had a virtual appointment a day or so before the dream, reminded me that my heart rate is low, occasionally with even seven seconds between beats, and that this could lead to serious, even life-threatening consequences. In addition, I have now for several months been bothered by skin conditions, with small, itchy ulcerations forming around my ankles or on my shins. One doctor suggested this could be due to circulatory deficiencies, while another said it was simply eczema from my skin aging and not maintaining its previously healthy thickness and capacity to keep itself well moistened, a condition that now requires ongoing treatments to manage and limit the deterioration. When I exercise now too, I frequently have mild shortness of breath that may be related to simple aging or might be another sign of circulatory difficulties. There are as well prostate concerns and a greater need for stops in the restroom. I could go on. All in all, though a more sanguine view might look at the glass as at least half-full, the reality is that I am getting older and am progressively wearing out. I may, with good care and a lot of luck, last another ten, fifteen, or even twenty years, yet I shall all too soon be but a memory in the lives of a few who have known and cared about me. It is not unknown too for me to have thought back on the course of my life and judged it harshly, figuring, compared with expectations in teenage years, when I had hoped to be a successful writer, a therapist, or a physician, for instance, that it has been a waste. Maybe the dream is fairly intelligible after all.]
