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April, 2023
9 19It feels like I've been away but am now back in a job similar to what I was doing for the Texas Rehabilitation Commission as a disability examiner, determining if people were or were not disabled under Social Security guidelines and then writing up appropriate allowance or denial reports after consulting with the department health professionals, and later doing reconsiderations, reviews of cases that had initially been turned down to see if instead they ought to be allowed, and, still later, working on potential cessation cases, in which there was the possibility of benefits being ceased after folks had been on Social Security disability roles for several years.
My supervisor is Barack Obama, not as politician but just him, his personality, yet in the role of a unit supervisor of several others. He is meeting privately with me in his office and says this is my last chance. If I mess up or do not do the job with enough efficiency and quality, I'll be fired, with no opportunity to get my job back. I understand and let him know I'll do my best. Within myself, though, I am not sure I'll be able to do well. I had already been doing all I could to handle the work, and (in the dream) I had been suspended after this was not up to the current standards. I feel anxious but also depressed, as if I know my best efforts and intentions will not assure I keep my job.
[Of Barack Obama, my impression is that he is a politician, which means he will sometimes do and say things for political effect rather than simply in a statesmanlike way, i.e. doing or saying them for lesser motives, instead of because he knows and follows what is the best course of action. Nonetheless, I believe he was in certain ways one of our better presidents, particularly for what he accomplished despite Republicans doing all they could to assure he failed in that office and their showing a great deal of racial prejudice toward him. He is, in my view, one of the smartest men to have presided over our country. Obama is also apparently a good father and husband, plus being an excellent author and speaker. In certain ways, these qualities of the Obama shadow self may be reflections of the potential negative and positive character traits or capacities of myself. Of course, I am not a father, yet I do have a kind of fatherhood, in relation to my inner child. I have as well interactions with kids through my volunteer work at an elementary school and as an uncle and great uncle to many nieces, nephews, plus grand nieces and nephews.
4/19/23 - Title: "Where to Go"
I am in a large, complicated, spacious building. It has several stories and is a place of classrooms as well as administration, of smaller, closed-in areas as well as big, open bays. I am searching for a men's room and am needing to pee. I go into a large restroom and think I can finally have relief here, but a woman comes in and says I am in the wrong place, that this, after all, is not a men's room. I continue searching and needing to go. Up a floor or two and at one end of this vast building, a crowd of people are filling most of the space and evidently have just gotten out of their classrooms. I see my brother Ron among them and greet him. He responds enthusiastically. He says he is taking courses here. Close to him is a woman who is - or is similar to - my sister, Alice. We do not communicate. Later, I do find a private restroom space and am glad to use its facilities.
[Of my brother Ron, I'd say he is disabled, relatively relaxed in spite of this, usually pleasant but at times complains a lot to his partner, Christina, and has a history of excessive use of alcohol and pot, followed, though, with many years of successful sobriety in the AA program. He may make mistakes, but often lands on his feet. Of my sister, Alice, she has financial difficulties as well as physical problems and is kind of compulsive, but is also intelligent, pleasant, and has skill as a teacher, writer, and psychic reader. That there are several stories suggests more than one way to make sense of my life. The need to pee may be about the urge for self-expression, thwarted at first, but then realized. This is a dream representing learning and building, or opportunities for growth. It is probably significant that between me and my anima, represented by a character or energy similar to my sister, there is no communication. The anima is often about an example or counter-example of right feeling.]