Gramma,
My dreams are epic--vivid, detailed, and complex.
Last night there was a gargantuan black horse with this asshole male rider. I wanted to take the horse for a spin, but the asshole said only he could control the dark horse. So I asked if I could ride along to some really cool countryside. He said yes, he would take me later. Then he picks up two of his teen daughters and takes them for an all day ride. He doesn't get around to taking me for a ride and I am put out by this. There is an average, tame brown horse that I could ride. It had been in view when I was looking at the big black guy. I thought maybe I could take it, but we wouldn't go anywhere cool, or very far, or very fast.
While I was waiting for the horse dick to come back, I was again, as in other dreams past, in a too small duplex with my birth family, none of whom I like or want to be with. I was fighting for space to call my own/bedroom. One room had a toilet in it that would overflow when flushed. There was also a washer and dryer in that space. A door to the outside did not have a sturdy lock on it and nobody liked having that room because, God forbid, someone had stolen potato chips, (I do not like chips), and old shoes from the closet. The other rooms available had problems, two of them with non-functioning toilets. I often have dreams with nasty toilets that leak, overflow, are full, and don't work. I need one that works, and none of them do.
Meanwhile, I am on a trip in an interesting foreign country, (which is often a dream theme). The horse and man are there too, but not visible. While I wait for his sorry as to show up, I am making plans to showcase my sister/ friend/daughter-in-law's baby with a party. I have the baby dressed up like a cupcake confection, all ruffled and yummy. One minute she is a newborn, the next she is sitting up. Against the wishes of the baby "owner," I have been sneaking rice baby cereal in her bottle. I try to hide the evidence of this. She is too young yet and having a hard time swallowing it.
A white male with no personality and no friends shows up early for the party. I wholeheartedly welcome him before realizing's he is not the friend/person I thought he was. He tries to get me to commit to coming to a party at his remote mansion on a beach. He wants me to bring all my friends/family/people. I tell him okay, but am really not planning to show up or put my friends through this. The ocean there is cold, the sky will be overcast, and there is something unsavory about it.
I am also hanging out with nuns in this foreign country. We are having a good time, pillaging the massive library for our own use, and talking about life's mysteries. (I often hang out with nuns in my dreams.) There is this mega church under construction in this old country, (pre-indoor plumbing.) The church is amazing, with unique artistic use of large stone blocks. It will never fall down, but it is only about a third of the way finished. The foundation is sturdy, the bones are all there, and one lone guy is working on some small aspect with a trowel. He is high off the ground and smiling.
I want this church to be finished, but there are bad people from a negative political faction that want to halt the progress permanently. They show up on horses. I argue with them until they agree that if the locals can raise the money, it can go forward. They think this is not possible. Along with other people on this trip, we are being detained and fleeced for various infractions. I have taken library materials, two children's books I want to share back home because of the "moral of the story" potential. I write a $150.00 check to then nuns for the church before heading to the airport, (which is incongruous with the era). This is a lot of money for the time. I am not at all wealthy, but am willing to sacrifice for this cause.
I regret not having time to say goodbyes and am afraid I will miss my flight. There are a significant number of people who are also worried they will not get to the plane on time. We are in a very long line, not unlike today's TSA check points. The jerk on the horse did not show up to take me on the fun ride to see a piece of countryside I heard was worth the trip. At this point, it's okay because I am pissed and planned to tell him off for being such an arrogant piece of shit.
End of story.
Anybody want to venture an interpretation. I was raised Catholic. As an adult, I have had good relationships with nuns in a variety of situations. I am sick of dysfunctional toilet dreams. I am sick of this small duplex setting.
My take on this (or rather, the take of the PTB, so to speak) is that part of you recognizes that you have a number of cognitive dissonances at work in your life. He promises us a lovely view...but only one he can control, and then puts us off in favor of younger and sexier. You opted not to take the unsexy brown horse, because you knew it wouldn't get you far enough. The *promise* of the adventures on the black horse, on someone else's terms, won more of you than the reality of the brown horse you controlled. As a result, you ended up going nowhere...and you're stuck with people you don't really like, to boot. That's a bum deal, innit? :)
ReplyDeleteYou're sharing your house (in dreams, houses are usually us) with people you are connected to, but don't get along with. Your house is not secure, and it doesn't work properly--the locks are shoddy, the toilets are clogged (leaving you unable to "flush" the toxicity), and while there is a functioning washer and dryer (your ability to cleanse yourself and what you enrobe yourself in), it is still an unsafe deal--someone stole potato chips (nourishment) and shoes (your ability to walk away from it) from the closet (that should be a secret and safe place--kids hide in closets, but then again, so do monsters).
In the foreign country, you are trying to nurture your friend's baby, but you're doing it in secret and against her wishes (because part of you knows that what you're trying to feed her is not healthy). The man who comes to the party (an expression of love and family and birth and hope for the future) is revealed to be not the person you thought he was, and also there for very selfish reasons, wanting you to come to his party and bring all your friends. You trust your uneasy feelings, but demur instead of saying an outright no or articulating your unease.
The nuns and the church are expressions of your faith--you find spiritual comfort with other intellectuals, and enjoy meaningful conversations with them, but your church--the sanctuary--is unfinished, and perpetually so (because faith is always a work in progress). There *is* a smiling man, high up, who is working on the church (note that he is working--he asks nothing of you, and places no contingencies on his work--does that sound like someone you know? ;) ).
But the faith being built through hard and humble work, and meeting of minds is (as ever) being stymied by men on horses (on high) with material conditions working against progress. The faith is also battling against the systemic corruption that fleeces people over books (education and enlightenment) and diminishes the faith into financial terms.
You couched your "sacrifice" for the cause in money, but you do not seem to recognize either what you put into it (your dialogue with the nuns) or what you took out of it (children's books--hope for the future--with moral lessons to them). You are leaving the country of systemic corruption as well as the seeds of the pure faith growing in its midst. You are monetarily poorer, but narratively wealthier, but you have not given up on the arsehole on the horse showing up.
There is a lot of cognitive dissonance in your imagery here--your house is a duplex (dual nature), and there are conflicts in what you have let in and what you are missing from it. You have escaped the cloggy toilets and unpleasant people through running to a faith you call home, but which is located in a foreign country and in the middle of corruption. Your philosophy, the nuns, the happy, humble worker--those things all belong in YOUR HOUSE, not some foreign land of corruption. And the toxic people clogging up your toilets and stealing your shoes--they belong outside your house! Your spirit and psyche know this, and they keep telling you this.
Take the brown horse. Keep the books. Leave the shoes if you have to. Flush the jerks and embrace the nuns. They'll take you further than the promise of Mister Jerkface and his cheap ride ever will. They'll take you home.
I hope this helped. :)