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November, 2017
23 25I have a job as a teacher in a school or college campus setting. Have been feeling that work is too hectic and not really important or meaningful. Some friends with me there, both men and women, suggest it is my choice to do all those things or not. Why not do less of all the little, unimportant stuff but focus more on what truly matters and is enjoyable? I could even teach others how to have more rewarding lives this way too. I decide to take my friends' advice.
[There seems to be little mystery in this dream. It's a good piece of self-nurturing advice.]
11/25/17 - Title: "Pleasant Times in a New Place"
Scene One - It is daytime, but getting toward dusk. I am in a strange new city with my nephew, Jim. Most of the buildings are multi-story. We do not know where to go or what to do together. We decide to go into a restaurant and eat something. I ask what's the best thing they serve. The manager/owner/waiter behind the bar with several single seats uses tongs to pick up and show us a hot delicacy. It looks exotic and expensive, like maybe a giant boiled lobster tail. "What's your second best?" I ask. Again, with tongs he picks up what looks this time like a large freshly fried piece of meat, maybe a blend of shrimp and chicken tenders. I order us one. There's plenty to share, and the man says there are sides and a roll that come with it. It'll be a good meal for both of us and probably cost half what the delicacy would have.
Scene Two - It is daytime, close to noon. I am in a strange city with my brother, Allen, and nephew, Jim. Others with us, new to this place too, are easily in contact via smart phones, but right now it is just the three of us. We have been having a good time together but are feeling a little tired. Despite the generally very urban setting, in walking around we come to a gushing spring and little stream coming out of some rocks or concrete. There is enough water right here where it comes out for a bit of wading. There is a pool of mixed standing and flowing water, maybe as big as a bathtub full in depth or two of them in width. It is a neat surprise. Allen walks right in, followed by Jim. I think he took his shoes and socks off first. I follow too but after also taking off my shoes and socks and pushing my pant legs up. One of the others, Jim I think, calls the women (his fiancé, Becky, and one other young woman, I believe) and suggests they come join us here.
[Of Jim, I'd say he is brilliant, extremely talented, a great teacher, and has a terrific sense of humor. Of Allen, I'd describe him as smart and helpful in a practical, engineering, or handyman way, yet without much curiosity about things in general, and rather submissive or passive with his wife or kids. Of Becky, she seems highly intelligent, like Jim in being very talented, and does not suffer fools lightly. Both Jim and Becky are successful, professional dance performers (often as partners) and teachers.
The spring and stream represent the unconscious, emotions, and intuition. In this case, they are providing very pleasant, refreshing experiences, so we can assume immersion in positive feelings, integrative and helpful insights, and basic, healthy, unconscious states. The anima here, Becky, represents by example or counter-example attitudes or characteristics to cultivate or avoid. In this instance, they are all positive and so there to emphasize qualities that are to be encouraged and enhanced. Jim and Allen are shadow characters, some of my inner male energy options, and they too represent fortunate traits, sorts of brilliance, general smarts, practicality, humor, talent, capacity for being a good teacher, and being a handy man to have around. Yet there is also some passivity and submissiveness that likely does not serve me well. There is a sense of newness, of a fresh beginning, with substantial growth (buildings), and many constructive stories, some fairly concrete (basic), some foundational and to be celebrated (rocks). There is a sense of the passage of time, my life now closer to its conclusion (dusk). This might apply only to this ego or to my very existence coming to an end. Yet, there is still abundant nourishment or nurturance and a feeling of enjoying in the many moments that may remain. There are plenty stories yet to be told before the last curtain. Part of the newness is not yet being sure about things, a time of beginnings to be savored like unfamiliar yet delicious new foods to sample. There is so much on offer we can be value investors, picking from among the choices the best deals. One can stand for integration, unity. Three suggests transformation.]