Brian's Journal - A Dream Return
In front of the Eagle (08/16/2022)
The dream:
In my VW beetle I pull into a grassy parking area near some barns or other buildings. Getting out and walking up a gentle hill beside one of the buildings I notice that grass is growing up through the pavement of what used to be a road running up the hill. Part way up the hill I stop in front of a bank of post office boxes to look for box 688, from which I need to get my mail. I cannot find box 688, though I see boxes numbered in the 670s and 690s mixed in with other boxes numbered 7 and 9 and other random numbers. While I am looking for my PO Box, a woman in a reddish dress accompanied by another man walks up to me and sprays me with a jet of water from a garden hose, because, I assume, I am trying to check my mailbox on Sabbath. At first I tried to block the water with my hand then, giving up, I walk back down the hill between the man and woman. I am furious, and as I pass between them I swear "Fuck you all!" Taken back, they do not know how to respond.
Back in my car I start down the steep driveway just as someone else in a Jeep-type vehicle starts up. The driveway is too narrow for us to pass so the other car backs out, then we both follow a short gravel road out to the main road. The Jeep drives on the road while I take a shortcut over the shoulder. A fence consisting of three strands of wire, one of them barbed, blocks access to the main road and we work our way through it together.
The main road immediately starts up a short but very steep hill, so steep that I use hands and feet to climb it, digging my fingers into the pale velvety surface of the road for a better grip. Once at the crest of the hill I start running. A short black man is running beside me and trips. I am afraid that he might think I tripped him but I was looking at his feet at the moment he fell and he had caught the toes of his right foot behind the ball of his left. Oddly enough his feet were white.
Inside one of the buildings now, I look in several different rooms trying to find Susan. The rooms are crowded with both adults and children as if at a party, or perhaps Sabbath School classes. I notice that some of the women are wearing red, but I do not find Susan.
My interpretation:
I do not have an interpretation for this dream at this point but wanted to record it because feeling anger about being sprayed with a hose is a symbol which has appeared in a previous dream. In that dream it is Daniel who sprays me and he does so playfully but I respond with anger, which I grieve and regret after I wake up and recall the dream. In this dream it is a stranger who sprays me as a reproof because I am, in her opinion, breaking the Sabbath. Her reproof or reproach provokes my anger; perhaps in the earlier dream but I interpret Daniel's action as a reproach for my shortcomings as a parent.
A theme of being in control of my situation runs through the next couple of scenes of the dream. The Jeep yields to me on the steep driveway and I do not lose control of my car as I descend it. As I work my way through the wire fence, I also enabled the Jeep to make it through. I successfully surmount The steep hill without slipping back. I confirm to myself that I was not responsible for tripping the man next to me.
By the way, the main road strongly reminds me of Route 16B in front of the Eagle Mountain House in Jackson. My actions of climbing and running imply a timeframe of later in my marriage to Susan when I took up those activities, climbing with my boys and running on my own. That was also a time during which I began to distance myself from the church. Despite having a sense that the entire dream takes place out in front of the Eagle Mountain House, I do not have a clear association with that location. My most recent visit there was with John and Mom and friends from Marblehead, and prior to that, my wedding celebration dinner with Darchelle, family and friends. My family and most of my friends have been part of my life apart from Christianity, so perhaps setting the dream at the Eagle Mountain House associates it with my differentiation from that faith.
In the last scene, as in the first, I am searching but unable to find the object of my search. Both scenes are at least indirectly associated with the Adventist church, implying perhaps that I did not find in the church, or in Christianity, what I was looking for.
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