I don’t have a lot of vivid Freudian type dreams – mostly my dreams are mashed up renditions of my daily banalities, against the backdrop of a spreadsheet, my day’s counsel to a client trifle on an endless loop. But when I do have symbolic dreams, they fall along a handful of themes: falling from a helicopter/chairlift; losing my teeth; finding new rooms to explore in a house; driving too fast and unable to stop; being presented with a physics exam having skipped every class. They’re pretty obvious. But then there’s the last theme category, which has only begun to plague me in the last few years: flippantly butchering small animals and then feeling deep singeing remorse.
There was the small piglet that I began to mindlessly carve with a kitchen knife until I saw the look of anguish in its eyes; and then I wrapped it up in my arms and tried in vain to undo whatever it was that I had done. Until I woke up. And then for weeks I still saw the crying piglet in my mind and ached. And then a few nights ago there was the little mouse that I glibly threw in the blender with strawberries and made into a smoothie; until my dream psyche caught the horror, hit rewind, and then the mouse was whole again. And still in my mind I’m cuddling the little mouse, trying to erase the butchery.
In looking for the symbolism, I can’t help looking first at the most literal – should I revert to the vegetarianism that for years gave me a more comfortable conscience when I approached my dinner? But for various reasons that’s not really an option and I don’t think that’s really what the dreams mean anyway. Though my burger tonight did make me a little sick at heart.
It is said that all the characters of our dreams are really parts of ourselves…I think there’s a brutality in adult life – a thoughtlessness that becomes necessary, as we move in relative autopilot. Perhaps it is this crass thoughtlessness that is inflicting such abuse on my tender sentimentality. Days upon days spent thinking-not-feeling, until feeling just gets kind of crusty and flakes away. But with a whimper.
Dennis says I talk in bullet points. Where did my poet go?
