Cheated

The Dream: I want to buy some chickadees, some pretty little birds. A woman sells me five decorated eggs that she says will hatch out into the birds. Later I see her and she tells me that if the birds do hatch I must tell her how I did it and, what’s more, she wants them back. I feel angry, cheated, and annoyed that she is oblivious.

Interpretation: I want something that will fly, but instead am given potential flight. I have to pay for the thing I don’t want: the thing that I now realize has almost no chance of turning into what I do want. But—should the eggs hatch—I must return them. The number five is significant here; it’s when I started school. Does my psyche see this as the start of my confusing the gloss society puts on a thing (the decorated, infertile egg) with the thing itself (flying bird)? Am I only now realizing I’ve been conned?

In Over My Head

The Dream: I am on a chaise longue, reclining next to a couple. The woman sits closest to me, her partner on her other side. She is pregnant, a subtle bulge detectable beneath her blanket. She looks tired and a little frightened. This will be her 5th or 6th child. She has had most delivered vaginally, I’m informed, and one by c-section. Her partner is determined that this baby will be delivered vaginally. The doctor squirms a little; he isn’t as sure. This pregnancy was unplanned. An amorous moment caught the couple off-guard.

The woman appears to be in her early 40s. She has dark hair and a care-worn face. Her hair is short, and she resembles my mother. She seems to be thinking, “Can I pull this off? One More time? Am I in so deeply over my head I’ll never find my way out?”

Interpretation: I had this dream, and the one I’ll post later in the week, on the anniversary of my mother’s death. She was in her early 40s when she contracted diabetes, a disease she lived with for 45 years. It ultimately robbed her of her eyesight. In the dream her concern about her pregnancy at age 40 symbolizes the new concern she had at that age in waking life: living with a progressively debilitating illness. The repeated pregnancies reflect my feeling that she had too much to bear. I cannot understand the feelings I have about my mother's illness with my intellect; I'm in "over my head."

Down the Steep Stairs

Although no man is an island, sometimes it feels that way. Dreams can help us find, and understand, our niche.

The Dream: I live in an apartment in a city, and I’m preparing to go to a zumba class. I’m looking through a box in the closet and find a second pair of zumba shoes that I had forgotten I have. I decide to wear these, along with a two-layer aerobic outfit. I know I"ll be too hot dressed this way; nevertheless I put on the layers. The layer closest to my body is a turtle-neck jumpsuit; over this, a decorative lace dress. Though I like my high-heel zumba shoes better, I want to wear the newly discovered low-heels.

As I exit the apartment building there's an unexpected hurdle. I am on the fourth or fifth floor, and the only way to street level is down a very steep and precarious staircase. It’s made of broken