Not an I (Eye) Surgeon

The Dream: There is an eye surgery nearby. The head doctor, who does laser surgery, is an affable phony. He's been friendly, so I go back to see him. He's in the middle of an operation. To get to him I have to walk all the way to the end of his facility, a long, narrow room. I see him working next to a large rectangular surgical table covered by a tray filled with blood. The smell puts me off, plus I can see he's busy, so I leave.

As I get to the front door one of his assistants, an officious nurse, points to a flimsy sign, folded over in a way that makes it unreadable, handwritten on lined school paper. The sign says, “Stay Out!” or “No Admittance.” She is judgmental in that quiet, huffy, offended way that some women have perfected. She says something like, “Didn't you see the sign?” as she slams and locks the door after me.

I feel guilty and ill at ease about having trespassed, even though I hadn't seen the sign. I worry that I will be the cause, or be blamed, if there's a difficulty with the eye operation.

Interpretation: This dream was triggered by a guest dreamer post:  The Dream. I saw the dream as sexual, in some way connected to the dreamer's menses, related either to her actual father's reaction to her coming to womanhood or to the father as symbolic of the culture's values. I was concerned that the woman who offered the dream might be offended by my interpretation. My own dream tells me that I shouldn't go near the blood, that I am trespassing. Perhaps with this particular dream, I was “at the end of [my] facility;” in other words, either my comments were facile or I was out of my depth. And this could be true because, to avoid upsetting the dreamer, I did feel the need to soften my reaction to her dream. I see the doctor in my dream as a phony, but affable.

If I make a mistake with someone's “I” (eye) I leave myself open to a huffy, offended judgment. At least as far as that particular guest dream goes, my own psyche thinks it might have been better to see the writing on the wall (the sign) and “Stay out!”

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.