A Dream

Some day soon I hope to rearrange these "Current Events" or "Reviews" page so that I put things in categories. I have written on several dreams I had over the years. I had this particular dream in the wee hours this morning. I share it here because, in general, my web site is the place of most of my reflective thoughts and feelings, some of which are quite intimate. The only thing I think you need to know to "set the context" for the dream is that today, in about 30 minutes or so, my 19 year-old son is coming over to the house (he lives with some people his age in a house in town) so that I can move him to college. He will be starting school on Monday. It is a big change for him but, then again, he also headed out for college 3,000 miles away in August 2005. The move today is considerably closer.

The Dream

My narrative of the dream consists of two parts: (1) an overview of the flow of the dream in general and (2) the particular image of one part of it. (1) In my dream I was with a friend. For part of the dream the friend seemed to be a woman but for parts of it, the friend was a man. I was comfortable with the companionship, whoever it was. We were in a sort of park-like setting, but it was not as if we were on a picnic. S/he and I had to go through several obstacles before we could get into our car and leave for the day. I don't remember the obstacle courses in detail, but one of them was scaling a not-very-high (or difficult) wall. I recall that one of the obstacle courses was getting down from the second floor of a barnlike structure, without having any ladder or stairway to help us.

(2) The most vivid part of the dream opened with me and my friend (male this time) on the second floor of the barnlike building again. I had already negotiated the obstacle once but, for some reason, was up there again. In addition, this time I was told that it was by far the most difficult obstacle of the course and that it was dangerous. I recall peering out of the second floor and seeing the paved driveway below, and this time the paved driveway seemed far, far below me. I didn't recall it being so far away the first time around. In addition, this time when I was up in the barn I was carrying four books. I didn't know what they were, but one was extremely valuable to me and all of them were important for me. I knew that I and the books had to "part" temporarily in order for me to make it to the ground.

But I still didn't know if I could make it safely to the ground, so high up was I. I looked around and saw another room in the barn nearby, which looked out on a roof which was seemingly lower than the dizzying height I now occupied. I thought that I might try to check out that roof in order to get down from the height. I recall looking down again from the large opening (probably for hay) on the 2nd floor; it was much too high to jump or to "drop" to the ground.

I began to get worried. Then I noticed the books again and realized that I would have to let them drop to the ground before I descended. So, with great care, I dropped them. But, when they hit the ground several feet below, they scattered, bouncing here and there, with one book open and (as it seemed to me), with pages torn. I became concerned for my books, even though I was even more worried for myself.

A Woman Enters

Then, at the height of my uncertainty, a woman appeared below, on the first floor of the barn. I could see her either through a trapdoor or through a place where stairs used to be. She was a woman about 60 (whom I didn't know), and she was inquiring for me. I said that I was Bill, and she informed me that she was the representative of the committee who owned and oversaw my personal residence (In fact, I have owned homes since 1990), and she was sent to inform me that I would be having new residents in my house with me. The problem was, she explained, that the rent generated by my occupancy wasn't enough, so they decided to let out one of my bedrooms to a single mother with a disabled daughter. The mother had a history of not paying bills and of getting in trouble with the law, she told me. The child needed a lot of care. I would continue to pay the same amount for rent (about $400 per month) but the woman and her daughter would only pay $210 per month. How did I know this? Well, she proceeded to read me the contract that the committee had drawn up with the woman. I remember listening very closely to the language of the contract, to see if I could spot some legal loopholes to its viability or enforceability as she read. But then my mind began to wander. I wondered if the owners of the house were in some way mad at me because, as I only fuzzily recalled in the dream, I had launched some gentle public criticism against them the previous year. I didn't have a chance to ask the woman this question because, as soon as she finished reading the rental contract for the woman and her disabled daughter, she disappeared.

I looked at my friend, looked in vain to the first floor after the woman, looked out again at my books that were now even more scattered, contemplated the jump, and then I awoke. And, as John Bunyan says, "And behold, it was a dream!"

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