My late husband used to say: “Don’t ask a question unless you actually want to hear the answer.” I forgot.
See, I’ve been writing. And yesterday when I checked out some Dictionary apps, a ‘Dream Dictionary‘ showed up in the search. I downloaded purely for kicks, a few laughs… like reading a horoscope. ZERO percent of me believes in astrology (especially since ghost-writing a BOOK on it once!) but stripped of their power, horoscopes sometimes amuse me… and I thought of this ‘dream decoder’ in the same (entertainment-only) light.
In other words: sheer fool-aroundery this morning, zero serious intent.
I forgot. I forgot to factor the difference between a ‘Virgo-blurb’ and a dream; namely, that MY brain created the dream. True, the off-its-rocker-crazy-Crayola part of my brain authored it… but even that bit of the brain is working with the raw materials of MY thoughts, experiences, feelings.
In other words: don’t ask what someone said about you (even ‘someone’ within yourself) unless you actually want the answer.
My therapist is going to LOVE this. Here’s the dream I wrote down this morning:
…I’m standing on an interstate with all the traffic entirely stopped and drivers just standing around waiting. Every vehicle is a truck; I’m surrounded by trucks; some are even stacked up like Lego bricks. I’m strolling around pretending to chat with all these truck drivers, but I’m secretly searching for the Bad Guy in a yellow shirt who has created this standstill. An apprentice-agent appears and I send her scouting uphill through the woods to find a cell tower.
Total garbage, right? I know, I know—and I opened the Dream Dictionary expecting a hearty, self-mocking laugh out of the whole thing:
- Stopped Traffic: not progressing where you want to go. [Well duh. That one’s barely even a metaphor.]
- Truck: carrying a heavy load or difficulty. [Ouch. That’s, um… Heavy, actually. I did mention ‘therapist’, right?—We’ve been working through my husband’s suicide and some bad shit. ‘Stacked trucks’ pretty well describes it.]
- Yellow clothing: Anxiety. [Seriously? Why did I know the Bad Guy wore a yellow shirt? But yeah, Anxiety has definitely snarled up the traffic of my ‘truck’-loads.]
- Uphill: an undertaking or project.
- Woods: your mental space or unconscious.
- Tower: a refuge, a place of strength.
Well shit, I got robbed of my laugh. Unless you want to count laughing at myself because I had to do some Thinking instead. Whether or not I consider those dream-definitions “real,” that particular decoder-ring painted a pretty plain picture of my whole Therapy.
Ha, the irony! It was the endless freight-train of Nightmares that goaded me into therapy in the first place. I think it was the morning that I woke myself by hurling a coffee cup at the wall… Picking up the pieces {no metaphor there, cough cough} of my favorite mug, I decided to enlist some help with my Thinker.
I’ve deleted the Dream Dictionary… But maybe I’m listening better to my Mind.