The Fossil

The Dream: I'm on a trip with some friends, in the mountains. We've just heard that a special and unusual geologic phenomenon is nearby, some sort of extruded fossil. The fossil is a stream of igneous rock. It's very rare and special. We've gone to the venue and are standing in line waiting to be admitted and very excited about it: it's something to see!

I get a phone call. I'm not sure who it is, I think it's Dona K. Since I'm not sure, I make conversation for a while hoping she'll say something that will confirm her identity. I ask how she's doing. She says something tragic has happened. When I try to figure out what, she says they've all gone back to college. This doesn't sound tragic to me; I try to figure out why she thinks so—does it cost too much? I don't know. She has some black sons.

Interpretation: Many of my interests, even my way of being in the world, is becoming outdated, fossilized. There are good things about these interests, they are rare and special, but the phone call I get suggests I need to look at some of their other aspects. My friend Dona, being very conservative, represents the part of me that is the same. I'm out of touch with this part of myself; I'm not even sure I can identify it (I'm not sure who's calling.) My inner conservative sees the quest for knowledge as “tragic.” The dream tells me that learning something new (getting a new insight or doing something in a new way) might be expensive (cost too much, be difficult), but it isn't tragic. Dona's black sons represent the part of me that is the opposite of conservative: my fertile imagination, the place where new growth can appear. The dream tells me to embrace the part of myself that loves the traditional, but to use what's old in new ways. This is where I will find my new growth.

Diminution of the Mother

I had this dream after my older child moved to her own apartment.
The Dream: My mother is getting breast augmentation surgery. My son and I clutch hands for comfort in our anxiety over mother's operation. I begin to wonder if he is too old (he's about 9) to hold hands with his mother, and I wonder if he will pull away in embarrassment.

Next we are inside the medical facility where we see mother's picture on a video screen. She has turned into a baby and is dressed in a very feminine outfit with a bonnet. Her face, however, is still mother's. She looks cranky. “I don't think mother is going to like this,” I say.

Interpretation: As much as we are happy to see our children achieve and go out on their own, it represents a loss. As I lose the mother role to my child's independence, my mother (me as a mother) wants to have her mother role (breasts) enlarged. I ponder accepting the child's need for independence as I wonder if my dream son will be embarrassed to be holding hands with his mother. By the end of the dream, mother has been reduced to a cranky baby. I apparently haven't accepted my child's new life with good grace quite yet.