On the dining room table in the dining room of a spacious rustic cabin is a small dish containing a little pile of gunpowder. I feel a compulsion to light the gunpowder on fire even though it might explode or burn down the cabin. I strike a match and light the gunpowder anyway but the match goes out. On my second try the gunpowder ignites and burns rapidly but not explosively, creating a swirling funnel of smoke about about three feet tall and a foot across. As the flame subsides and goes out I consider that it did not produce as much smoke as I anticipated, but we open the doors of the cabin to air it out anyhow. Before doing so I consider whether or not to wake up my wife, sleeping in the other room, but decide that I do not need to do that. Returning to the table I move the dish and see that it became hot enough to melt the cheap plastic-coated tablecloth underneath. Concerned that it might have damaged the surface of the table, I lift up the tablecloth and see a white stain but it appears to be only on the surface and moreover, the table already has a larger white stain nearby.

I associate the tornado with anger, my own anger which I long believed would cause great harm if I allowed myself to express it. The dream reflects that belief along with the more recent understanding that the effects of anger are manageable. The cabin may represent the childhood origins of my fear of anger. The dining room table reminds me of the table which Darchelle and I bought together and which is now the centerpiece of our dining room. It is in the context of my relationship with Darchelle that I have finally learned that anger rarely causes the kind or extent of harm that I anticipate.