Much Ado About Nothing

The Dream: A crazy man, older, who looks like a World War II vet, is shooting 2 six guns outside a museum. I run for cover and cower among what look like archeological remains: pillars, columns, large stones, in the area across from the building. A woman holds me; she wears a blue jacket. Partially she holds me out of her own fear; partially to comfort me.

Interpretation: This is my terrified inner child, confronting the angry father of my early childhood. He is in front of a museum, a place where artifacts of the (my) past are stored. Mother and I cower among the old ruins, those ruined times of painful family interactions. Doing the illustration for this dream affected my understanding: what Dad shot off was his mouth. He was irascible, not mean or cruel, and yet he probably scared my gentle and somewhat timid mother as much as he scared me. I laughed when I finished the drawing; the silly image showed me our cringing overreaction to some irate words—which, in the final analysis, represented somebody blowing off some steam. Now that I can look at this anger with an adult perspective I can see there’s no longer reason to be frightened.

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."