Dream Week

Art from France

Of course I dream. Everyone does, but most of the time I don't recall at all the content of my dreams. If I do remember a bit, I know it was just going over things that I saw heard or did that day in some kind of randomness. Laying down (or not) memories, I'm sure. I also don't put much into trying to interpret dreams. They mostly seem to me to be meaningless neuro-biology at work...not worth spending time with the next day.

This week, however I had TWO very clear and long dreams that had narratives. My friend M says I should share them. So here goes.

Dream #1 ..... the working out of anxieties dream ..... I think

Scene one - the hospital

I was at "the hospital" although it was like no real hospital I have ever been in. It had old fashioned wards and a maze like quality to it. There were people there, but none of them were real people that I could ever recall meeting. But it was the maternity section.


All the babies were really horrible monsters of various kinds. Huge, tiny, colored oddly, lacking parts, having extra parts, making noises, silent, moving, still as the dead, anything wrong you could imagine. I recall one that looked like a puppet with a huge papier mache head and a flat body. The huge head just sat there on top of the flat body with its' eyes open, watching things. The babies were lying on all kinds of beds too, some safe but many not. Many were just lying on little tables with wheels so they could easily fall off.

There were lots of adults who were all normal and nice enough. Moms, dads, nurses, doctors, midwives, others. I was walking around and constantly trying to get the adults to pay some attention to the babies, but no one did. The adults would maybe glance at a baby and then go right back to whatever they were doing. It was like the babies were not even there for them. I was very frustrated.

Scene two - the classroom. 

I was at the front in a really huge classroom (no room that I have ever actually been in, just like the hospital) trying to talk to my students about the class requirements for this new class we were beginning. There were many more students in the room than I would have ever had, now or in the past. No one paid any attention to me. Mostly they all talked amongst themselves. People would get up and leave, return, leave again, as they pleased. I got no where with them.

So what does it all mean?

I think these dreams together are just a variation on the turning up at work naked or trying to take a test and knowing nothing dream ... the performance anxiety dream, teacher version.

It all could mean that I am anxious about my performance as a teacher now. Or it could mean that I am no longer a good teacher. Or it could mean that I don't want to be a teacher any more. Or it could mean that I am not needed to be a teacher any more. Or all of the above. I do think it has something to do with this transition away from being a teacher that I am undergoing. I suppose like any transition, there are some not worked through issues about leaving the past as I move into a somewhat uncertain future.

I AM moving into a new future happily!

So maybe I am a bit anxious deep down, but that is not going to stop me. That's what dreams are for. My anxieties can stay there in a safe place where they have no effect on what I actually do or say or try or not try or upon whatever happens. In the daylight, I know I am moving ahead with confidence. And I'm going out dancing ..... or riding a bicycle.

I will put dream #2 into another post. If I don't, this one will be impossibly long!