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October, 2020
28Scene One - Am in an urban setting, yet also one that seems related to a college or university. (If so, it is not one with which I am familiar, other than in a general way. I know or knew the Austin, Berkeley, and Columbia campuses of the University of Texas, University of California, and University of South Carolina, respectively, but it was not one of those.) It feels like I am getting acquainted with a new area and am anticipating, as well as being curious about, starting an intriguing curriculum in this new to me area.
Scene Two - I am on the ground floor of a larger building and am one of a few prospective clients of a highly qualified group therapy facilitator. We are meeting with her for the first time, getting an informal orientation or introduction. She is neither very young nor yet middle-aged (and in the dream I am younger than in my actual age, perhaps about 40 or so, though I am not sure about this dream age). She is attractive, intelligent, self-confident, experienced, and good at her vocation as the group therapist. Though I have yet to start working with her, I know she is quite motivating and will lead each participant in an in-depth, esoteric journey. As with workshop facilitators in the 1960s and 1970s in California's Esalen Institute or with Zen sesshin retreats, there is the potential for a positive, upbeat, insight-enriching, transformative overall experience.
I do not recall the specifics, but a couple women and, I think, one other man have been asking her questions about the group work. Her answers have been interesting. They whet my appetite for being involved in this. It is at once exciting and scary. I have the impression the others are interested too but not yet fully committed to it. There is some business about payment (much of which is not remembered). At least part of the cost must be paid in advance. Before leaving, some of the others make a portion of the payment. In some way I am helping with their change and wind up with a couple $20 bills in the pages of a book I have with me after they have left.
The teacher/mentor/therapist/facilitator and I are then alone together and talking. It feels like we have between us a better rapport, intimacy, attraction, and sense of trust or of being more on a par than was the case with the other potential group participants.
She tells me my fee must be paid up-front. The figure 340 seems to come up. I think at one point this is the cost, but then it turns out to be related to the length of the group workshop or course, and I am, in the dream, rapidly trying to figure out how many years that would be if it is to last 340 months. The cost will be high. Although she had said I must pay in advance, evidently she leaves before I have paid it. I am not sure if this means she has decided not to have me pay, after all, or if I still must pay but will make these arrangements later. In any case, I am sure I'll soon be starting in her workshop/group and that any further details about the fee will be easily resolved.
[The therapist/facilitator reminds me of Janet, but it is not her or anyone else I know in waking life. Of Janet, though, she was better known to me earlier, when I was involved with dream groups and before she tragically suffered a mental crisis of some kind, after which she has been reclusive and much less self-confident than earlier. To the extent the dream facilitator is like Janet, though, it is as the woman I knew for several years prior to her breakdown. She was highly intelligent, attractive, probably in her 40s then, musical, brilliant in her spot-on insights into and analyses of others' dreams, and very warm-hearted, had a great sense of humor, and was empathic. She was also extroverted and very curious about others. There was, though, some tendency to project her own circumstances or feelings onto others' situations. At times her instant assessments did not fit well for the other people. And she could be more judgmental than warranted, yet she was open to having her views challenged if people did not agree with her first impressions.]
