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April, 2015
4 16 17 18A group of people have gathered in a place. It is like a big hall or warehouse, mostly empty, with more than one entrance and exit, at night. We are here maybe to watch a movie shown on a small screen, a more intimate setting than in a regular theater, or to hear a speaker, like at an author talk and Q & A session at Book People, except here there is at first more space and there are few if any seats, but with big boxes here and there on the floor.
I am one of the group and have no special role here, just expecting to be among those in the audience. Despite the large small (space) available, folks kind of crowd near the front, all standing up at first, and so we are uncomfortably close to one another in this milling around group waiting for something to happen, for the author speaker to show up, the movie to start, or whatever.
There is something else, of a sexually attractive nature, with a woman who is also there in the throng and who is near where I am, standing or sometimes sitting there, but this is all unclear except the recollection that I was turned on by her face and how she looked in slacks and a tee-shirt. I think we had gotten to talking, but nothing else about her or what, if anything, happened is recalled. (She is a woman I did not know in the dream and do not know in reality).
Finally, something is about to happen. Some people who are running this place arrive there, as well as a guest whom I believe is the author/speaker. They come in together (4-5 of them) through one of the entrance/exits and walk toward us. By now we of the milling group are sitting down on the floor and sort of blocking their way, or they do not bother to go around us, so they come right to us in a way that we'll have to make way for them, for them to pass through us. A fellow next to me, sitting there to my left, is foreign or confused and does not understand that he needs to move to let them through, but they do not slow down and just step over and beside him in a way that is awkward and seems unnecessarily rude and aggressive.
We all then need to change our position/orientation, so that we are facing toward what had been behind us, and thus there is a quick adjustment as we jostle and pivot to sit in ways to permit viewing the other way. I find I am fortunate in this, winding up sitting against a big empty box that, though it is unstable and moves easily, having no contents and hardly any mass, at least keeps people from sitting too close right by or behind me. I am now sitting to the left and in the front, in our new facing direction.
The author/speaker fellow is up there a little away from us, maybe 20 feet in front, with one of the walls of the hall/warehouse just behind him. It looks like, after all our waiting, he is finally going to begin his talk or whatever.
However, just then a woman approaches him from my left (his right) with some things in her arms that she gives to him and says are a donation. He begins looking through and getting engaged with these gift items, like maybe some used clothes, a laptop computer, etc., and meanwhile just ignores his audience which is by now getting more restless, frustrated, and impatient.
I too am bothered by this and wonder angrily why he is attending to this special-treatment-seeking lady and to her gifts when he is supposed to be there to speak to all the rest of us. Some people feel this sucks and are grumbling that maybe we'll just cut our losses and leave. I sort of agree, but wonder if maybe we ought to wait a little longer, so he'll then hopefully at last talk to us. After all, we have already been expecting, anticipating the event quite awhile.
[The big box that is unstable and hardly has any mass likely represents my voice box, currently a bit dysfunctional with hoarseness or laryngitis for some 3-4 weeks now, about which I've worried that it may be cancerous.
The anima has special gifts she has given to a shadow part of me, but my ego does not yet appreciate or acknowledge these gifts or their value, including a new way of thinking and a change of persona, thinking instead that we are to receive some message from the shadow personage, who may also represent my concept of a higher power, yet that is not where his attention is engaged.]
4/16/15 - Title: "Intruders"
Scene One - Some people I don't know or want to know are seeking some missing person, a friend or relative of theirs, they say. I am living in a kind of temporary rooming house where there are few boundaries for privacy and protection. These people come in and bug me and will not leave me be, interviewing me, more like interrogating me, ostensibly about when and under what circumstances I had seen the missing guy. I tell them what little I know. I had heard the missing fellow say about 5 words (not now remembered). The intruders/seekers of their missing man do not take the hint but definitely overstay their lack of welcome, continuing to hang around this temporary residence plus talking loudly, so I cannot sleep, even after closing my flimsy door to get more quiet time and isolation for myself. I'm very tired, annoyed, frustrated, and anxious (that I cannot get rid of these people).
Scene Two - It is the same situation except that the setting has changed. Am now in a house, my own residence, and these intruders include an alcoholic and others who cannot be reasoned with and do not take the hint that I want to go to sleep and have the place to myself again. I'm disgusted with and somewhat afraid of these invaders who won't leave. They are like street people who nonetheless have a lot of pushiness and won't be persuaded to leave either by a diplomatic approach, appeals to their kindness (for I really need my rest and privacy) or my firm insistence. It seems I'll have to call the police, but if I try they may get violent or otherwise retaliate immediately or in the future. Am still frustrated, irritated, and anxious, and feel that my life has been invaded, and that now there is no place I can be alone. I certainly do not want to leave with them still here. Who knows what harm they would do before I'd get back?
[The number 5 suggests waiting and patience but is also a key number for me, one suggesting spirituality as well as how I naturally organize the world and my functioning or awareness within it.
It seems significant that even though I am more in my inner self (my home rather than a temporary abode) in the second scene, the sense of intrusion or invasion persists, as well as the feelings of my boundaries having been breached so that now I am sort of at the mercy of inner energy aspects with which I do not have any integration or rapport; thus they seem like interlopers, as though they do not belong here, though clearly - it is all my dream - they are a part of me.
It occurs to me now, though, for I am in Alanon working on Step 6, that maybe these unwanted guests are the shortcomings I am seeking readiness to have my higher power remove.
In the sphere of the external world, it is likely there are catalysts for the dream that feel out of my control and deleterious, that keep me from getting adequate peace, rest, solitude, or quality time to myself. Perhaps I feel there are too many demands on me or my time.
The missing guy is a shadow part of me that may have significant things to tell me, a part of me to bring into a union of my various inner characters.
Maybe one message of the dream is that I am not protecting myself (the small child self from my earliest years) well enough, not taking care of this vulnerable aspect of myself as is wished or needed.
The presence of the alcoholic and of others who seem like street people suggests a part of me that is addicted, not to drugs and alcohol but to other things, perhaps, for instance, a co-dependent part of me that is addicted to feedback from others, seeking their approval, etc. at the expense of being true to myself.
Others who seem like street people may represent portions of my psyche that are not so good at self-care and are but eking out an existence rather than having a rewarding life.
It is too bad, but interesting that some inner characters or parts of myself disgust or frighten me.
Quite possibly there is much more to the dream, but the main things that come through for me are: 1. It would be good to look after my inner child's care much better than I have been doing; 2. There's a need for establishing and maintaining better boundaries, so my emotional well-being does not so much depend on what others do or do not do or say; 3. I can integrate better with my inner characters rather than shunning them or seeking escape from them; 4. A key may be the short speech of my "missing" shadow, for in giving a message of five, he is affirming a core value for me, toward which I may return to know greater peace and enrichment within; 5. It is well to accept myself as I am, unwanted "guests" and all. Only then do they cease to become adversaries (or at best negative distractions) and only so will there be opportunity for my HP to remove them, as, when, and if he sees fit.]
4/17/15 - Title: "Chicago, Chicago... My Kind of Town!"
I'm in a large urban area with multi-storied buildings (skyscrapers) and cross-streets, the small open areas mainly just asphalt-covered or industrial. It is night. I see a place where there is some water flowing, gushing, and reach down into it (the water) to turn a knob and so close off a valve, which I assume is the source of all the extra water. However, the water keeps coming, in fact increases, so that big pools of it are forming. The adjoining streets and lower levels of the buildings are getting inundated.
So I call someone of (at), I think, a 911 or 311 type number to report the problem while this rapid flooding continues. However, the lady taking the call is very bureaucratic and detached. She apparently just wants to get down a set form kind of info to relay to someone else as a message. She is evidently not grasping or concerned that this is an emergency and needs immediate attention.
I remember that one of her questions is what city I am calling from or about. "Chicago," I answer. I am surprised and frustrated, for if she does not even know what city we were in then it is going to be problematic getting the flooding stopped anytime soon.
[Taking things line by line, the setting for the problem here is multi-storied (i.e. has many stories or themes). I am cross. Things are mostly closed-in, but where they are a bit more open there is a lot that equates with criticism or judgment (asphalt = as-fault). There is nothing here that is nurturing and natural. It is a time of unconsciousness yet intuition and emotion (night).
On the plus side, though the ego hardly sees it that way, there is plenty of, or even too much, emotion flowing (water), albeit probably negative feeling for the most part.
I attempt to control the emotion, without success. Indeed, my efforts are met with even greater, now nigh on overwhelming, degrees of emotional experience. To the ego, these threaten the growth (building) that has already occurred, perhaps, for instance, through dream work, Alanon, counseling, or 40+ years of meditation.
I call on my anima for assistance, but she is here not enabling the ego's sense of crisis (at having to feel a lot of negative emotion). Rather, she is showing by example a more detached, cool, business-like way of treating the situation.
9 = 3 x 3. Also, 3 is part of the other number suggested, which in my dream interpretation background means transition, transformation. 1 suggests unity or one's spiritual core or integration. It is repeated twice, then twice again, indicating dawning understanding of the issues involved.
Chicago reminds me of the musical of the same name as well as the famous poem by Carl Sandburg, both suggesting a robust, tough, creative, hardworking, and talented approach to existence.
I recall as well news footage about the Chicago River having flooded not long after Frances and I were visiting the heart of the downtown district, the waters many feet deep in streets and in the lower levels of a number of buildings.
Though I do not know how this ties in, my wife's childhood locale was a suburb of Chicago. It was her favorite place to visit when she was growing up. To me, she too exemplifies a robust, tough, creative, hardworking, and talented approach to getting through life.
The final words of the dream indicate that, unfortunately for the ego's preferences, a lot of emotion is still going to be felt for at least awhile. If he (the ego) does not accept being uncomfortable, a sense of crisis may persist for yet quite awhile.]
4/18/15 - Title: "She Really Turns Me On"
I am alone (so I think) in a large bedroom at night. I wake up, aware I am evidently alone, and feel lonely, saddened by this. I get up and start toward a doorway a little to my left, to the hall where there is a dim light (night-light?) on. Before I get there, though, I am surprised by a touch that becomes an embrace, from my wife, Frances. She has on only a sheer nightshirt or slip and, for the first time in awhile, is both affectionate and inviting of sexual intimacy. I am turned on.
Title: "What Makes You So Special?"
Most is forgotten, but I am being monitored by Russian-American or Jewish-American émigrés (or they are both) whom I suspect are really spies (spies on me and the USA) connected with the Russian KGB. They want information from me, and I believe once they have it they will kill me. I try to evade them, but they anticipate, for they know me and my activities as well as or even better than I know them myself. A series of complicated, though all but forgotten, events occurs in which I try to make sense of everything and at the same time elude these émigré-spy people, but I completely fail at both, so all my complex maneuvers just serve to tire me and stress me out to no avail.
Then the lead émigré guy, a fellow built like a refrigerator and in a massive overcoat (it's a big city, daytime, and winter here) pays me a visit. I run, but he easily catches me. He (like me of him) asks me questions, but in answer to a (now forgotten) comment of mine says words to the effect: "No, we don't want to kill you. We just want to know why your life is of so much interest to somebody that these things keep happening to you."