I Stink

The Dream: We are looking for a recipe for pecan pie. I remember that it is delicious, and that my mother made an excellent version. I look through lots of cookbooks, focusing on one with beautiful pictures rendered in a soft technique, with simple shading of basic shapes. I wonder if this could be computer generated, although it doesn't look it. Then the artist speaks: she tells me she does all her work by hand, the old-fashioned way.

I have retreated upstairs and am lying on a bed with the covers loosely over me. I fart very loudly a couple of times, hoping no one downstairs has heard. Clark comes up a minute or two later and lifts off the covers. “Whew!” he exclaims, and I'm embarrassed.

Interpretation: The day before I had this dream I got an email from an artist acquaintance cataloging her recent accomplishments. Her current gallery show has been well received and she has been reviewed by influential critics. Her success is well-deserved, but that doesn't mitigate my reaction to it: envy combined with a massive feeling of inadequacy. In other words, I stink. My unconscious uses an over the top, humorous image to show me there might be some hyperbole in these feelings.

The “old-fashioned” techniques the dream artist uses refer to the classical but dated art that I prefer and cling to. The pecan pie is something delicious from the past that I'd like to recreate. Who knows? I might yet find the recipe if I keep looking.

Through a Glass Darkly

The Dream: I'm wandering through the streets of New York with a partner who seems somewhat--but not quite--like my husband Clark. The sidewalks are interspersed with trees; they remind me of Manhattan's East 60s, near where I once lived. It is early autumn. We are looking for Uncle Steve, and there is something mysterious about the mission. He has relocated and won't tell anyone where he is.

We go into a large old-fashioned apartment building, dimly lit with wide hallways. We know he's here. The door of his apartment is half frosted glass. We knock. He doesn't answer. Clark bangs loudly and assertively on the door. Finally Uncle Steve answers, not by opening the door but by yelling at us. He wants to be left alone.

Interpretation: My uncle's birthday was a few days ago; he died in the early 80s. His death is indeed a relocation. I'm looking for someone to tell me what awaits on the other side of the door. The door's frosted glass tells me, in the obscure and poetic language of the King James Bible, that spiritual truths are glimpsed “through a glass darkly.” In a recent dream class the idea was offered that if you ask your spirit guide the wrong question s/he won't answer, and also that the departed must volunteer for the job. It doesn't appear that Uncle Steve wants this one.

Looking at the dream's more mundane possibilities, my uncle was one of the authoritative adults when I was a child. How many questions does a child have that are left unanswered? Or responded to with anger?

A Crown of Thornes

The Dream: Clark is getting his teeth worked on. The dentist is very casual, but reasonably priced. He seems old-fashioned. Clark has a tooth crowned, and the procedure doesn't look too bad. He needs to have another capped and is waffling. I ask the dentist if the procedure will be similar to the one he just finished, hoping he'll say yes so that Clark will be reassured and get on with it. But the dentist indicates it will be worse. The second tooth is not fixed.

Interpretation: In any long standing marriage there will be on-going differences in the way we approach problems. This dream is telling me that while I think I know what's best for my husband—and while what I'm pushing for might be the inevitable right choice (getting the tooth crowned)--what I'm not understanding is how much pain, for him, is involved in doing this thing.

Sisterhood is Powerful

The Dream: I’m in a very nice, upscale restaurant with Clark and my two daughters, who are adults, but are wearing clothes they might have worn as children. The dresses are pretty, old-fashioned, summery. I say something about the fights they had as children over clothes. “Are you going to embarrass us in this restaurant?” I ask. They pretend they are going to have an argument, just to tease me.

Interpretation: My waking- life daughters didn’t fight over clothes or embarrass us in restaurants, and they don’t currently dress as children: the children in this dream represent my own inner children and tell me that I’m integrating psychic material from the past. (Their clothes are old fashioned.) Their squabbles stand for old internal conflicts that still make me uneasy. (“Are you going to embarrass us. . ?”) On the other hand, their differences have apparently been worked out to the point that they can get together and tease me. And I know they’re teasing, a good sign.