The other night I laid down for a catnap. I was a little agitated but didn't know why. I dreamt that I was in a ward for psychics, wearing a blue hospital gown. My hair was a bit shaggy, like when I was a child. I was part of a group. We were told to make a map of our imagination and identify two major issues of why we were there, assign them numbers, and then go to that floor of the hospital and we would receive answers to those problems. I drew a number of boxes to represent a floor plan First, I went to the fifth floor. I sat down with a doctor in a big red restaurant booth. We talked about a relationship I'd had several years ago. I came away understanding that there was nothing I could have done to salvage it. It was doomed from the start. I felt a sense of acceptance that I knew would allow me to finally move forward. I thanked the doctor and left.
I started looking for the elevator to go to the 7th floor. For some reason, there wasn't just an up or down button to push, you had to select the actual floor number you wanted. I couldn't find the seven. I started getting upset. A medical technician, trying to be helpful pointed to a button and told me that was for the 7th floor. But when I looked, it was a 5. I became angry and told the tech that I wasn't angry at her, but that when I looked at the number, it appeared to be changing. I could see on her face she was a little bit saddened. Suddenly, my agitation went through the roof. I started babbling because I knew what was waiting for me on that floor: something life-altering. I was scared. "He [the doctor] wouldn't do that to me. I have to trust him. I know I can trust him. If I go up there they'll kill me or lobotomize me. That's what I would do if I were him. It would be the right thing, the best thing ..." and on and on.
A crowd of doctors, nurses, and technicians starting to form around me as I babbled on. They didn't say a word but started linking their arms and smiling gently at me.
I realized that they were going to kill me right there. I started crying and pleading with them, telling them that I didn't want to die and there were things I still wanted to do and see. When they had all assembled around me, arm in arm, they started to close their eyes, and lie down encircling me on the floor. I felt my dream self become very drowsy until I sat down, too. I fell asleep in my dream.
Suddenly, a sense of peace came over me that I've never felt before. All the agitation I'd been feeling dissipated. My mind was quiet and I felt a sensation of goodness, of wellness. I woke up and realized "Hey! I'm still alive!"
Some of the symbology of the dream is obvious, such as the hospital. Hospitals, nurses, and doctors represent a need to heal physically, mentally, and spiritually. I was confused about the elevator, so I consulted a website that I highly recommend, called "dreammoods". Elevators represent the ups and downs of life, among a few other things. Taken together, hospitals and elevators represent the need to give myself time to heal from my life journey. I've been pretty bruised and battered over the last ten years: failed love relationship, fired from several jobs, branded as a security threat, been evicted, went from well-heeled to practically barefoot. Ouchy.
However, now I have a place to live and have to do very little in exchange for it. It's becoming a situation where I can literally pick and choose to work or not because one of my desk clerks is leaving. Things are improving in tiny bites that are easy to absorb.
For the first time in my life, I have a place where I can take the time to just relax, to just think - or not. I can finally stop running from job to job and place to place, reacting wildly to the world around me. I can finally take the time to take control, when I'm ready. I think that's the best part. There's no hurry.
Understanding this is better medicine than having a portable morphine drip.
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