Tag: doubt

The Cake Dream

Another anxiety dream, this one featuring cake.

Something had happened in the dream previous to this moment but its pieces are like sand in the wind. With the wind calming, I found myself in another place.

A younger version of me entered a hotel ballroom. Brightly lit chandeliers hung over the  gathering. Everyone, including were well-dressed, with most (including me) wearing a black tuxedo with black tie.

Everyone milled around, as if waiting for an event to start. Lost when I first entered, I slipped to one side to get out of the way and figure out what was going on. Multiple tables were set with tablecloths and centerpieces featuring burning candles. On either end were tables. Seeing something on those tables, I went to them.

The tables were full of elaborate cakes. Seeing them, I became ravenous. I wanted a piece of cake but there weren’t plates, knives, or forks. How was I supposed to get a piece of cake?

Feeling nervous, I decided that I was going to leave. As I began turning, a woman in a shimmering silver gown approached me and announced, “There you are.” I thought she might someone else and tried stepping out of her way, but it was clear that she meant me. Even as she changed course and addressed me, I backpedaled, almost banging into the table full of cakes. God, what if I knock them all over, I worried, almost seeing the mess that it would make.

With the woman coming to me, others were coming my way, too. The woman was talking but I couldn’t comprehend what she was saying. As she reached me, she took my arm in hers and asked, “What cake would you like?”

I said, “I don’t know, they all look good, but I don’t see any plates.” I was looking for plates, knives, and forks, and then, with surprise, saw that they were on the table. As I mused, how did I miss that, thinking they weren’t they before, the woman said, “It’s all for you. Take whatever cake you want.”

Distrustful of her (and leery of more people) (mostly men in tuxes crowding around me), I told her, “I think I need to go.” As I disengaged myself from the woman, a tall man stepped up and held out a plate of cake to me. “Just take the cake,” he said in a gentle voice.

I laughed because I thought he said, “This takes the cake,” but I was also confused because I didn’t know what he meant. Still holding the cake toward me, he said, “The cake is yours. Take the cake.”

The dream ended.

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Be Brave

Another writing slash self-examination of myself post. It’s all about me, you know…

Writing often is about the author, whether it’s the process or subject, the writer is deep into it. I’m too damn introspective for my own good, and I’m a fragile beast.

I’m struggling with April Showers 1921. Much of the struggle is my fault; some is due to life events.

Life events kept me from writing several times. Vacation. Vacation is a good thing, right? Not for this writer, as it meant not writing. Felt like someone was scraping the enamel off my teeth.

Other life events, a birthday party, memorial service, surgery and health issues, interfered with my writing habits. Those, though, could be overcome. I felt confident of that.

Harder to overcome was my doubts about what I was writing and the story that I was relating. “Overthinking” is the world. Overthinking let in the doubt monster. The doubt monster fed my writer angst. Next up was a full blown case of imposter syndrome worries.

I walked and fretted, ate and fretted, awakened and fretted…fretting accompanied everything. I was engaging in one of the worst and most common problems afflicting writers, trying to write for others instead of myself. It took me until this morning to realize it. A young woman’s tatoo finally awakened.

She’s a barista at my fave coffee shop. On her left wrist was a tattoo, “Be brave.” 

I’ve known her for four years. She graduated from high school a year early. She was sixteen. She then took a year off to travel Thailand and southeast Asia. She said tattoo was a reminder.

After speaking with her, I went on a walking break. I admired her and her tattoo. I’d never tattooed anything on myself, but I employed a mantra: “No fear, no doubt, no worries.” I’d developed it when I was young to help me overcome those things. Others were always saying that they saw things in me and nominating me for stuff or asking me if I wanted to try something.

What kind of cad would say no to such sugary words? Not me. Between genes, birth order, and socialization, I’m just a boy who can’t say no. I want others to like me too much. I don’t want to disappoint them. I fear disappointing them.

That’s where and when the mantra was born. People would tell me, “You got this. You can do it.” Nodding, I’d agree without speaking, and then tell myself, “No fear, no doubt, no worries.” I frequently added, “Focus.” Results were often excellent, usually surprising all of us.

Remembering that, I turned back to the times when I employed that mantra and achieved good results, and decided, time to drag that mantra out again.

No fear, no doubt, no worries.

Time to continue writing and editing like crazy, at least one more time.

 

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Another Flying Dream

My first thought was, “Shit,” followed by my second thought, “Shit!”

Going backwards, I struggled to grab anything nearby, a futile effort because nothing was nearby. As I went backwards, I was turning my head, taking in my environment, and processing information. This led me to a realization that I was falling backwards.

The sky was dark. It wasn’t night darkness, but stormy darkness. My dream mind split between addressing what was happening now and worries about surviving, to a more intellectual approach that wanted to understand how I’d come to be falling backwards and where I was falling from.

The where part seemed visible as a dark gray castle on a high mountain crag. Some trick of light played with it because I also saw it as a rain-whipped white concrete building with tall, dark windows. The image duality confused me, but they reminded me of ivory tower and Gothic horror. The background for both were thick, charcoal clouds that promised prolonged and violent storming. I seemed to think or recall, my dream self didn’t know which, I’d been climbing, it’d been wet, and I’d slipped. When I did, I lost my grip and the wind blew me off the mountain.

Meanwhile, I was falling straight backward, going down. Knowing that behind (below) me was a steep, treacherous ravine filled with fir trees and boulders, I didn’t relish landing, because it was sure to be painful.

Then, I wasn’t falling down. I seemed to be hanging in the air on my back. I looked left and right, enjoying that. As I did, the wind picked me up and righted me, an action that spread a grin across my face. “Thank you,” I thought to whoever or whatever did that for me.

The weather had delivered on the promised deluge. Winds roared around me as lightning ripped the sky and lightning boomed in best Wagnerian manner. But I was cool with it, calm, but wet, and weirdly, grinning and happy. The dream ended.

I still grin as I remember it, because I looked so happy.

After awakening and cruising through morning routines while drinking coffee and mulling the dream, I thought, this represents the past and traditional ways of doing things (the dark castle), and the intellectual writing process (the ivory tower), and my usual fears of failing (falling), with efforts to reassure me not to worry (floating and then flying).

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The Food Dream

I awoke hungry from last night’s dream.

It was a simple thing. My wife and I were with many other people. I knew them all, but she’s the only one I recognize from my actual life.

After walking on a cement walk, we entered a hall or reception area. I smelled food as soon as I walked in. Huge, the place bustled with people hurrying about. I realized most were servers. Long tables of food were set up along the walls on either side.

My wife and I were confused, asking one another, are we supposed to be here? Neither of us knew. We were looking around. The people we’d been with were not with us. We couldn’t see them. We saw a lot of other people, but not anyone we knew. I decided, “We must be in the wrong place. We took a wrong turn. We’re not supposed to be here.”

She agreed with me. We were turning to leave when a young serving woman in dress in black, with a white apron, approached and said, “Let me show you to your table.”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to be here,” I said. “Is this a wedding or reception?”

The young woman looked confused. “No. This is where everyone eats.”

I was confused. “Who is everyone?”

“Everybody.”

“So this food is for everyone?”

“Yes.”

We went back and forth talking about it because I was sure there was something yet to be revealed about what included everybody, but it was a circular dialogue, with the answer being that we’re supposed to be here. The food was for us.

My wife and I looked at one another. “I guess we’re supposed to be here,” I said.

“You are,” the woman said. “Follow me to your table.”

We followed her but I remained highly doubtful. She took us to a table, one of those big, round ones, set with flatware and glasses for ten. A young man came up, asking if what we wanted to drink. He could get us anything that we wanted. We chose our drinks. He went off. We then realized it was a buffet and went off to one side. There was table after table with food parallel to the wall, with servers waiting behind the tables. I think I saw everything – turkeys, hams, steaks, and fish, along with bowls of vegetables, and potatoes prepared in different ways, like scalloped, boiled new with butter and parsley, and mashed. I saw an omelet bar, a huge salad bar, and pies, cakes, and cookies at a another table, and an ice cream sundae bar.

The sight of so much food floored me. I still didn’t think I was supposed to be there. I was certain there was a misunderstanding. Nevertheless, I ordered food, which is where the dream ended.

Writing this up today, I realize I’ve had similar dreams to this before. I derive a meaning from it that makes me grit my teeth, that I continue to doubt myself, believing that I’m not worthy, that I don’t belong to wherever I’m going.

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