The dream:
(My memory of this dream is not completely clear, particularly the transitions between the main scenes,
and even when I was attempting to remember it during the night I found it confusing.)
I am on a plane with Susan and David heading west from Boston late in the evening. I am not sure
why we are on this plane because we are supposed to be headed to Jackson but perhaps it is because
if we went directly to Jackson we would get there in the middle of the night instead of in the
morning. Susan and David lie down to sleep on the floor in front of the aisle seat, the seats in
front of us having been removed to make room. The people who had been sitting in those seats return
and wonder out loud where their seats had gone but they go away without making a fuss about it. In
our row the seat by the window has also been removed but I realize that there is enough room for me
to curl up and sleep on the two remaining seats.
A woman is sitting in the aisle seat in our row with a paper bag of starter plants, mostly flowers,
at her feet. She asks me what is my favorite flower, and when I cannot think of one, tells me that
hers is the "Jasmos", or something like that.
I think I am still on the plane but in the actual setting I am standing in a small pool of water
perhaps five feet across and a foot deep, like a goldfish pond, and am using something like a
spatula to scrape something like cookies off the top of the wall around the pond, or perhaps off a
broad shelf in front of the windows of the plane. I am eating whatever it is I was scraping up when
Daniel tells me that someone had spit there and that they might have been contagious, like with
Covid. Figuring that it is too late now, I go ahead and eat whatever is on my fork, then try to
rinse off the fork in the water of the pond. Something green like mashed avocado is stuck between
the tines of the fork and it should be easy to rinse off but each time I swish the fork in the
water, the tines collect even more of the soft green paste.
Possible meaning:
As with many of my dreams, the meaning is not initially clear. Traveling on a plane may symbolize
movement through a period of time (through a period of life?), but on this trip, not much is going
the way I want it to. The plane is headed to the wrong destination. I am not able to lie down on
the seat and sleep because the woman is in the way. I cannot think of my favorite flower when she
asks me. The food I am eating may have been contaminated. I am unable to clean off my fork.
Susan and David asleep on the floor, and Daniel's absence, may provide a clue to the period of time
described by the dream. David lived at home with Susan for a year or two after I left, during which
time Daniel was living in Spain. The flight heading to Seattle while I am attempting to get to
Jackson may represent the tension between my sense of obligation to Susan and my intention to honor
my own needs and desires. My association with the pool of water in which I am standing is a
goldfish pond in the front yard across the street from where I had a garden (the woman with the bag
of plants?) for several years early in our marriage. Standing in that pond may represent my deep
investment in the ideals of love and the approval of God which inspired that marriage. The mashed
avocado of course recalls guacamole, which was both a memorable culinary effort with close friends
during college and a favorite meal shared with our boys during their teenage years. That green
paste on the tines of the fork may represent both commitment to family and commitment to my own
happiness, commitments which I regarded as to some degree incompatible while at the same time both
non-negotiable.
In the dream I have already eaten the food I scrape up with the spatula; it may make me sick or it
may not, but either way I am already committed. In many other dreams returning to Jackson, my
childhood home, has represented the admittedly unclear concept of pursuing a life true to myself.
This dream may reflect the messy reality, both emotional and actual, of that pursuit.