“I have a dream, a fabulous dream, babe” — “Gypsy.”
Rosalind Russell with high heels stomping on stage, in deep swagger, blaring out her song, like Ethel Merman on steroids, it is a self proclamation. I associate to Martin Luther, anti-Semite par excellence, who majestically told eternal Rome and her pope: “Here I stand.” All that in this theme which somehow and in some way, like the tail on a kite, flutters over my dream as if, I,too, have something to shout out in a stentorian way.
Essentially as only a dream can present itself, I see before me a series of two sets or stages, as if constructed for a play. To my left there is a small room apparently enclosed by metal as if a cage and shelving runs across all four walls. In the room there is an amanuensis or secretary that I cannot see but I feel he is a librarian, or a keeper of the books. The books are unusual in that they are all vividly bound paperbacks, reds, royal blues and so on. I am taken by the beauty of shelves so densely lined with books. One book vaguely opens before my eyes but I cannot decipher it except to realize it is of paper. And then it is gone after my very cursory inspection.
Next to the book cage, what appears beneath me is some kind of lateral bin. I shuffle some papers or folders aside and I come upon four books. They are sheathed in leather, perhaps some metal as well and they are hardbacks, all together as if a series. I have four of them. As I think about them, they have covers like accountant ledgers (am I being taken into account?).
As I pull them from the bin, each book discloses a blue, thin paperback, a delightfully handsome blue. It is as if each of these books is a kind of primer or Cliff’s Notes to the hardback books. Somehow I am taken by them although I do not open any of the books, hardback or paperback. The dreams ends here although I feel there was a third portion I cannot recall, as happens in dreams, and a few other dream “strings” that evanesced and became unretrievable to my conscious mind.
As I remember the manifest content of the dream, three words come to mind: worth, capacity and accomplishment. I felt in the dream a welling up of accomplishment and that made me feel buoyant, afloat with good feeling. Secondly, “capacity” is an offbeat word — capable, capacious, etc –as if I was enlarged so that within my self I had the capacity to do more or produce more. Worthy was a feeling as well, but not as strong a resonance as the other two feeling states.
And so the dream ended, a few lines from “Gypsy” as if an undercurrent soundtrack; three words issuing up as I recollected my dream while awake; and a feeling of empowerment in terms of some personal achievement or other.
I don’t believe this dream is too difficult to interpret, but I will share it with my therapist for her input. Clearly I feel it is important enough to write it out in detail upon awakening.
A major association to all of this was the recollection of a dream I had more than thirty years ago. At the time, if I recall correctly, I was in a psychoanalytic institute. The dream I give here puzzled me for days before I “nailed” it. I mention it here because it came back to me while thinking about the dream I had last night.
In the old dream I was at a high altitude and situated on a mountain tarn. The lake was ringed by mountains. The lake was solemnly calm, too much so, eerie, nary a ripple on its surface. And I was on the beach, one of volcanic pebbles, not sand. As I stood at the shore I observed in the half foot or so of water before me three manta rays, or so I imagined them to be. They were flat fish, one next to another and at rest, no movement at all.
For some reason I ventured to step upon one ray, which I did; it did not move or slip away. And then I stepped off. I was doing this with one foot. I stepped on each manta ray in such fashion, one foot on its back and then off. The fish did not move. And that was the entirety of the dream which annoyingly perplexed me for days.
I sought out symbols — mountains as breasts; water as the amniotic sac, et al. After much frustration I began to go over each part of the dream as if I was doling out the mathematical intricacies of an algebraic equation. Finally I came upon it in a happenstance. After all, what was the action in this arcane dream? I stepped onto and off a fish and that was it.
I wrote that I stand off and then on a fish. At last that morphed into “standoffish.” And there it was. It was an aha moment. I am standoffish as a person, no doubt about that. In a very primal and nonverbal way, the dream — if we accept this interpretation — was telling me something about myself. It is a stellar dream in that it reminded me of the cathedral entrances in which stories such as Adam and Eve for those who could not read. are carved in stone. The primitiveness of my dream appealed to0 me in its concrete simplicity.
And now what is the connection between the two dreams, one fresh and new, one ancient? That is to be determined in my next therapeutic session, hopefully.
Manta rays do not exist in mountain tarns. They are, in this dream, fish out of water, they don’t belong, I may say. And I wonder if my standoffishness is somehow related to a fish out of water, out of its element. Or, in both instances I am an outlier; something to ponder.
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