I am doing something in a big house, perhaps working for the man of the house. I take three sticks
and stand them up in a big pot of sand. Three strangers, perhaps homeless people, show up at the
door and I let them inside. One of them is wearing a red and gray flannel shirt. The strangers
need shelter so they stand with the sticks, or perhaps they are the sticks, and I drape a sheet over
the top of the sticks like a tent. I touch a lit match to the base of one of the sticks. Fire runs
up the stick and becomes a small patch of blue flame flickering over the sheet so I try to beat it
out with my hands. While the strangers are in the tent I work on cleaning up, trying to shake the
sand out of an old wool blanket but the blanket is too heavy for me to handle all at once.
Eventually I get it folded up.
I suddenly realize with alarm that the strangers were in the burning tent and that they may have
suffered from the smoke. Checking on them, I see that their faces are completely black so I lift
them out and lay them side-by-side on the floor. They are straight and rigid and thin, like sticks,
or maybe like puppets because they are fully dressed. Their clothes do not seem to be harmed by the
smoke but I am afraid that the three strangers are dead. They had taken off their shoes before
getting into the tent so I look in the shoes to see if they left their wallets or other
identification, but the shoes contain only a few pieces of candy or bubble gum. One of the pairs of
shoes looks like women's slippers.
Worried that I might have killed the strangers, I find the man of the house and tell him about them.
I wonder if I should call the police and confess because if I don't they might accuse me of murder,
but if I do talk to the police they will ask me who the strangers are, and I don't know how to find
that out. The man comes back with me and pokes at one of the blackened heads, actually one of two
spare heads next to the bodies. The head crumbles into charcoal and the man says "Yup, they're dead
all right!"
A man in a white sweatshirt is outside the house and wants to come in. Darchelle is ready to let
him in but the man of the house sees him and adamantly refuses. Darchelle wants me to go try to
persuade him to let the man in the sweatshirt in. I'm reluctant to talk to him because I'm
convinced that he won't change his mind but I'm also concerned that Darchelle will be upset with me
if I don't try.
I awoke feeling anxious about the whole thing. Free associating while still half asleep, I
identified the three strangers as me (in the flannel shirt) and Sarah and Eric, but as children, not
adults. The young man in the white sweatshirt I identified as Eric as an adult. The blanket with
sand in it reminds me of the old wool blanket I slept under when I lived on my own in Seattle prior
to marrying Susan.
Intending to help the strangers (who may in fact be my own family), I inadvertently caused them
grievous harm while trying to get my own life in order. My father was of no help to me as I tried
to deal with the consequences, but instead caused further harm by rejecting my younger brother. The
primary theme of the dream might be that like my father before me, I hurt those whom I love. A
secondary and less obvious theme might be that in believing the idea that I cause them harm, I am
overstating my power and understating their agency in our relationships.