Tag: confusion

Driving in my Car

I was alone. Driving in my car, a dark SUV, which is not my car, but I had procured it for a dream.

Attempting to park, I broke the driver’s mirror and scratched the passenger side. I tried leaving the car but couldn’t open the door sufficiently to get out. I was too close to the rest.

I backed up, trying to create another plan. A black child was in the back seat. I didn’t know them. Apologizing, I told them to get out but took them for a ride to help them reach their destination.

Parking elsewhere, I learned I had a temporary room at a temporary location. I was in the Philippines. I was supposed to be leaving. I entered the building, cement with several floors. Going to my room, a military style modern barracks room, I discovered a mess. I wasn’t ready to leave at all. Opened and unopened cans of Fancy Feast cat food was everywhere. Most were chicken flavor. I attempted to collect and sort them into bags, to dispose of them, while also attempting to pack my clothes. I also found half-pints of unopened milk containers around the room. I didn’t know what I was going to do with them. I had no refrigerator, didn’t have any need for them, and didn’t understand why I had them. I couldn’t remember buying milk or cat food.

I was running out of time but strangers kept interrupting, and distant relatives dropped in to visit. I was trying to understand, did I bring my car here? If so, how did I bring it? If it was my car, how was I going to get it back to where I came from? I had airline tickets. The car couldn’t fly with me, could it? I found a picture of myself from the previous year a relative had taken and left for me to see. My photo disgusted me.

Pro football players entered. One was Ben Roethlisberger, the Steelers quarterback. The others were famous players. They nodded greetings toward me but were talking among themselves. I don’t think they knew me.

I needed more information to help me decide what to do but there wasn’t anyone to give any. I raced around, in and out of my room and up and down flights of stairs through the cement complex with the cans, the milk, my clothing, dodging people, trying to comprehend what was happening with my car, trying to decide what to do with it, wondering if I could get more time to deal with it.

I awoke with nothing resolved, with the dream streaming through my mind, filling me with thoughts about potential meanings.

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Going Backwards

I dreamed I was going backwards last night.

It wasn’t a bad feeling, going backwards, although I was in a car, actually occupying the driver seat, and it wasn’t my car, but belonged to my late father-in-law, and it was a Prius, which I think is beyond what he would own. He was a Jeep man, fond of hunting and fishing.

But let’s step back to the dream.

I dream a lot. I don’t know the averages for people. Dreaming is a self-reported matter. According to people who study people, people aren’t reliable about self-reporting matters, and those are the people who would know.

My pa-in-law died in December of 1991, an intelligent, personable man from southern WV. A friend recently died, prompting me to think of friends, pets and relatives who have left one plane for another, but I don’t think that’s what this dream was about.

I was visiting him at his home, which, being a dream, wasn’t the home where he usually lives. I think dream experts tell us that dream houses represent ourselves. So do cars.

Which brings me to the car. Visiting my in-law, Jim, I gathered I was to drive his silver Prius (not the latest generation, but the last generation of car…an interesting side-bar, which could merit more inspection for its meaning in the dream), following a person driving another Prius that belonged to Jim (and, huh, also silver, it WAS the latest model). I thought we were going fishing. Fishing with Jim was a relaxing, meditative pastime, and a favorite. I miss fishing with Jim.

So I’m sitting in the Prius driver seat, waiting for the other fellow, when the car starts rolling backward. Jim and the others notice, frantically motioning for me to stop it. Of course, that’s what I want to do, but I’m unfamiliar with the car and don’t know where the brake is.

Can you believe that?

I think that confusion over something as simple as braking a modern car could be something to ponder.

Meanwhile, the car rolls down the driveway and into the street as I attempt to figure out what to do. Then, it stops.

That was enough for Jim. Like a TV sitcom, the next scene shows me being driven in the other Prius, indignant about being stripped of my right to drive another’s car. And then I arrive at a business and discover that I’m to intern there. Mildly astonished, I’m dressed in the sort of California Silicon Valley business cas that I wore for years so that’s not a problem. I also brought another pair of shoes, so I can take off my Nikes and put on something dressier, which I do. Wow, what strange forethought.

This isn’t a start up but a plush and modern office space. A guy is there, playing with a radio controlled electric car, racing it over the carpet. I watch him for a few moments before deciding I need to pee. Going to the first bathroom, I realize that their symbols for the bathroom’s sex are foreign to me (and they’re symbols, not letters). After looking at one, I go to the other restroom. There, I hear someone urinating. I think it sounds like a man so I begin entering. Two women exiting the restroom jokingly re-direct me. One knows who I am and why I’m there, and tells me she’ll inform HR that I’m there.

An HR woman arrives and tells me to go with her. But I can’t, I want to get my shoes, and also, where are my sunglasses? Ah, my shoes are on my feet and my sunglasses are in my hand.

A dream trend is developing.

I apologize for being there, explaining that I didn’t know that my father-in-law was going to set me up to intern, and get ready to tell my work history – twenty years in the USAF, a few years with different medical device start-ups, and then NetworkICE, ISS and IBM that culminates in another twenty years of work. The HR woman asks if my wife is coming. No, why would my wife be coming? She’s hoping she was because she liked her the last time. What? There’s discussion about my wife and her name and when she was there. That’s when the dream slides out of my awareness.

And now I see it all. The dream is about my confusion. What confusion? I’m not certain. See, the essence of being confused is that you’re unclear ’bout what’s going on.

I bet why I’m confused will come to me later, after I sleep on it.

 

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