Wednesday December 8, 2004 – The Significance of Dreams

Wednesday December 8, 2004 – The Significance of Dreams

I don’t normally remember dreams. Dreams are more the domain of my wife “I”. She dreams frequently and remembers them when she awakens, but more significantly, she understands their meaning—all dreams supposedly represent conflict resolution. Amazing how humans dream in drama or comedy, though I’m sure we remember the dreams that scare the hell out of us far more readily than the ones that make us laugh or smile. It’s no wonder that theater emerged as part of human culture regardless of race or geographic location.

I had this dream the other night that confounded me because I awoke not in a state of fright or uneasiness but rather in a state of confusion. The dream begins with me walking into what I sense is a rest stop along a highway. I have the distinct feeling that I’ve been traveling and have come into this place to rest before continuing on. What is striking about the place when I enter is that I’m completely alone. I enter through two glass doors and there is a long corridor that recedes into darkness toward the rear of the building. No lights are on in the room but the sunlight coming in from windows and glass door provide enough light that I can see the inside.

On my left as I enter the building is a wooden partition that extends from the floor to just below my chest. Inside the glass doors in front of the partition and to the left is a short set of step that lead down into a dining area filled with wooden octagonal tables each with four chairs neatly pushed into the table waiting for patrons to pull them out. There is nothing on the tables, but the room appears clean as if it were waiting to open. Windows on the wall housing the glass door illuminate the empty dining area. On the wall opposite the windows is a line of buffet service stations, cleaned and ready for trays of food that would be behind the station’s glass front—providing diners a view of the food that would be dispensed across the metal shelf mounted atop the grass fronts.

I walk along the corridor with the dining area at my left and in clear view over the wooden partition though the area immediately behind the partition in its shadow, is dark. I walk along the corridor about the length of an Olympic sized swimming pool at which point the partition on my left ends with another short set of stairs providing access into the sunken dining area. I turn left and walk down the short set of steps and just as my head sinks under the partition, the two glass doors open. Hidden in the shadow of the partition, I freeze for a moment willing my ears and nose to give me some indication of who is about to enter the room. I can’t smell any perfume or cologne that would indicate a man or woman. I hear footsteps and then the person stops apparently looking around getting his/her bearing.

I creep up the stairs peering beyond the partition to get a glimpse of the other person in the room, I see him. It is a male dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, looking down the stairs and around the dining area. He seems to be deciding whether to walk down the corridor as I did or to descend the first set of stairs into the dining area. He seems to be looking for something or someone. He begins to walk down the stairs and into the dining area. As he moves down the stairs I move up to the corridor and begin moving into the shadows away from the entrance.

As I get deep enough into the shadows to be hidden, another man comes in through the double glass doors and he also seems to be looking for someone. He immediately determines to walk down the stairs immediately to the left of the entrance and as he does so the first man goes up the stairs as I had done earlier only his movements are not as silent as mine and the second man immediately senses the first. There is a sudden movement as the first man begins to dash for the front door. Just as he is about to run the second man emerges from the stairs at the front and begins firing at the first. Curiously, the second man is not holding a gun but rather something that resembles a gun and it’s firing something that doesn’t make a sound.

As I watch the second man come up the stairs near the entrance, the first man ducks and retreats down the stairs into the dining area. The second man gives chase but not all the way to the second set of stairs, reasoning that the first man will dart for the entrance. Unable to see in the dark behind the partition, the second man returns to the stairs near the entrance and begins to descend the stairs and as he does, he begins firing.

Meanwhile, I realize that the two of them are so occupied by their chase that they are completely unaware of me, as if I’m invisible. I begin to walk toward the entrance to put distance between me and the conflict. As I reach the mid point of the partition, the two emerge from the rear staircase with the second shooting at the first and whatever is propelled from the weapon seems to be going through the first man apparently without doing physical damage. This continues as the pair pass beside me at a walking pace with the second continuing to fire from behind the first.

At this point I wake up. I describe the dream to my wife “I” and she is initially stumped. “What could it possibly mean?” I put it out of my mind, get dress, and go out on my run. I think of the dream off and on while I’m gone and when I return “I” makes the observation that I must have witnessed some kind of conflict in which one man was the aggressor and the second seemed to take the attack without being harmed by it. Apparently I knew the two contestants but had not taken sides.

Her words make me think back to the previous day and curiously, there was an incident at work when just such an encounter occurred and it came vividly back to mind as soon as she described her interpretation. There had been a dispute I had witnessed in which one party was quite put out by something a second had done. Though the former was visibly annoyed—I could sense the tension, the latter was completely nonplussed, treating it as if it were completely insignificant: Yosemite Sam upset, while Bugs Bunny queries “what’s up doc?”