Going Round in Circles

Do you think that this dream's meaning is obvious? I did, too, at first.
Dream Image: People are sitting in large concrete bowls that are moving in circles, like the mad teacup ride at Disneyland.

Interpretation: Okay, I get that I'm going around in circles, and maybe a little nuts. But what I didn't get was that I think it's fun, like a ride at an amusement park.

The Wall Flowers

The Dream: I’m in a car with some other people. At times I’m driving, at other times Clark. We come to an area surrounded by a wall covered with many beautiful flowers. The road is wooded and dense with vegetation, not like a forest, but like a suburban area that has been long established and become overgrown, yet beautiful. I ask what the wall surrounds, since something about the place seems familiar to me. I am told it’s a swimming pool; in fact it is the community pool near the house I lived in as a child. I am excited, saying, “I thought it looked familiar. I spent many hours here as a child.”  There are wide concrete steps, set at angles, going down from the pool to street level. The path meanders. I see it’s changed a lot. At some deep level I feel “activated,” but don’t stay to explore. I don’t go into the enclosed pool area.

Interpretation: The walled-off area and the pool represent the potential I had as a child, at the time of life when it seems all things are possible. But I am now like the suburban area, long established (overgrown) and changed from what I once was. The steps taking me down to reality (street level) are concrete, like the time that has past. Despite their concreteness, these steps meander. My path in life has meandered, and I can’t undo the (concrete) choices I’ve made.  Although the past can’t be changed, the way I perceive it has changed a lot. This subliminal realization is in some way exciting, but I don’t choose to explore it.

Life in the Suburbs

The Dream: A suburban subway stop is under renovation, with bulldozers and plows above ground. The area is landscaped with flowers, concrete, and grass--the attractive but institutional look often created by suburban landscape architects.

Interpretation: Here’s a neat little paradox: the suburbs, with their neat façade of order and respectability and the subway, a dark and steamy underground transport system. The composition of the landscaping—flowers, concrete, and grass—evokes a cemetery. I’m glad this stifling environment is under renovation! And of course, no matter how much it changes, the subway (unconscious) will still run below.

Exposed: Part 2

The Dream: I see what I perceive to be a public monument, although it is only a rectangular concrete box, sitting in a tree. I lean against the box, dislodging it so that it falls out of the tree onto the ground next to a bicycle. I check the bike, and it doesn’t seem to have been damaged. I think I should report this to someone, but instead slink guiltily away not taking the blame for what I’ve done.

Interpretation: My interaction with the public monument tells me that I am ill at ease in the social arena. First of all, I see it as monumental, a synonym for massive and weighty. It’s concrete into the bargain. Oddly, it’s sitting in a tree, a symbol of growth. It falls out of the tree, endangering the bike, a mode of transportation – my means of getting away. By leaning against the tree and dislodging the monument I have sabotaged my means of escape – but wait – the bike is not damaged.  And yet I can’t escape on it; I feel too guilty.

Why the guilt? I don’t want to accept the limitations placed on my life by the society I live in. When I dislodge these (the massive public monument) I am faced with a conundrum which leaves me unable to go forward. If I reject these limitations, I am a traitor: I reject my mother’s life and, by association, my mother.