bookofmirrors

This was somewhat disjointed, but somehow, it worked in my head as something that flowed.

I was on some sort of vacation with my parents and my oldest sister, and we were driving around, like we were on our way back from the vacation, and we were stopping at all these tourist-y roadside stands, and buying the stuff they sold there. I got the impression there were things that Mom and Dad got from these stands every year, and they were replenishing their supply. In real life, I know they buy pecans every year when they go to/from Florida, and in the dream, they did get pecans. There was also a place where a guy had just gotten this huge batch of fresh chestnuts, and my parents kinda bargained with him, and he gave them this really great deal on them, and they were really pleased to have hit the motherlode of chestnuts, which was apparently on their list of things to get.

From there, either because I got dropped off on the way, or because the journey was ending, I ended up at a place that was kinda like a school, kinda like a summer camp. I was hanging out with a few people there, but there were a lot of people. One of the people there, more like he happened to be there than anything official, was David's son. We got to talking with him for a bit, and he seemed so sad and withdrawn. I'm normally shy around him, mostly 'cause he's really good-looking and a really nice guy, (and recently single!) and part of me would really like to date him. But this time, as he was sitting there, I couldn't take it anymore. "Jeremy, come here," I told him, and started massaging his shoulders, using not just my hands but my energy to try and comfort him. Sometime during this process, he went away. It's not like he left, he was just gone. The group of friends I'd been hanging out with were all still there, and they had been in a circle around us, and they would have had to move for him to leave. I commented with surprise on his absence, and one of the older men in the group said, "Naw, he's still here. Look." He waved his hand idly in front of him, and at the arc of his swing, I could see the energy ripple. I was surprised, but it made sense to me, so I set about bringing him back. I stood up and started channeling energy through my hands, holding them in front of me at about chest height. In a few moments, I was holding his hands in mine; they were stretched over his head, clasped together in fists, like he was stretching or something. From his hands down, he slowly started to re-materialize, and he seemed as if he had dozed off, and had no recollection of going away, or that he had done anything unusual. This happened a couple more times throughout the course of the day, and there was one time where, as he'd returned, I had sat behind him, my arms wrapped around him, feeling such love and compassion for him, and just wanting to provide a safe space for him to BE. I sat like this a long time. I remember thinking about what I knew of his father, and about his recent divorce, and thinking how painful all that must be, and really wanting to help him. I think I was about to tell him about Core, and how I needed to work with a client on my own, and that I'd be happy to work with him, and that I really thought it could help him.

I don't know if I was ever able to finish that, 'cause somewhere in that process, I think my subconscious mind focused on David, and suddenly I was with him, and we were driving somewhere. We had left a gathering of some sort, and I was driving him, and for some reason, away from it. In the dream, I don't think I was even clear on it. He asked if I thought we were going to Shepherd Center (a bit strange, since we clearly weren't in Atlanta, but it's a dream, so whatever), since I was driving this way, and I said I hadn't been sure, so I'd just headed that way. He did his usual calling me a fruitcake thing (affectionately), and I went to turn around. Somehow, in the process of turning around, we ended up driving into the town, and somehow, I was no longer driving, but pushing him around in the wheelchair (which is unusual, since he has a power chair), and we ended up in this store, and we had to go down some stairs. This older shopkeeper lady helped me get him down the stairs, since we had somehow gotten ourselves in a place where there wasn't any choice but stairs. This whole place was a little bit Little House on the Prairie-ish, with the people in the town wearing that kind of clothing, and everything looking a bit of bygone years. There was a little boy there, playing, too.

Next thing I knew, I was by myself in one of these houses, dressed like the rest of the townspeople, and there was this guy who had broken into my house. By now means I could see, he was immobilized on the floor, lying on his back. I kept thinking that, if he wanted to, he could have easily overpowered me and killed me and/or escaped. But he'd been caught breaking in, and was now caught himself. I was there with a knife, and was cutting various parts of his body in a matter-of-fact manner, as a means of punishing him. I remember that I was trying to do this certain cut that ended up fucking someone up for life. It was somehow connected to genito-urinary things, 'cause I got the impression that if I got it right, sex would be difficult, and the bladder would always drip a bit for the rest of his life.

There was another guy there, kind of a Sam Elliot type, and he wandered in as I was doing this. I asked if I was doing it right, and he said that no, if that's what I wanted, I needed to cut a different way, which he showed me without doing the actual cutting. The guy was lying there, scared and helpless, and trying to talk me out of it, but I was very detached from the whole thing. The older guy (not sure who he was, but I could tell he felt a sense of protectiveness over me... maybe just in that frontiersman sort of way... I don't think he was otherwise connected to me) took the knife from me, and did a little cutting himself, not in the way that fucked him up, but eventually dragged him up to sit on the couch. He said it wasn't working, and that the guy wasn't freaking out enough, and that we should change tactics. Apparently, the guy had brought his kid, maybe an 8-year old boy, along for the break-in. The kid, somewhat clueless of what was going on, was well-behavedly sitting in another room on a couch, amusing himself, as he'd apparently been told to do by his father. The older guy said it was useless to torture the man, that he'd get a better result hurting the kid. I think the only reason I wasn't appalled by this was that none of it seemed real, and I think that I was pretty sure he was just bluffing. There was a point where he allegedly cut off the guy's dick and testicles, and threw them aside. I could kindasorta see 'em, and the guy was pleading with the Sam Elliot guy not to show his kid, but he wasn't as frantic as I would have imagined someone to be after something like that, there was no blood, and the discarded genitals looked a bit unreal, like gummy candy, so I think I thought it hadn't really happened.

In this weird sort of good-cop-bad-cop thing, next thing I knew, I had the guy on the couch (again, not looking like he'd recently had his genitals cut off) and the kid was in the other room, sitting on the table his father had been, with the threat looming in the air that the Sam Elliot guy was gonna hurt him (although I had no personal fear of that). I was talking to the guy, trying to be calm. Somehow, I knew he was a single father, and I was trying to wrap my head around his way of thinking. I was saying something like, "OK. I can see that you really care about your son, and that, somehow, you thought that bringing him here with you while you broke into my house was the safest place for him, as opposed to leaving him to be cared for by someone else. But you can see all the things that have happened while you've been here, and it's NOT OK to expose him to that." By the end of my little soliloquy, I was ranting and pacing a bit. I was doing the "NOT OK" thing quite a bit. He seemed genuinely remorseful, and like he was really trying to get it right, but just hadn't thought things through, and/or didn't have a clue.

Next thing I know, he and I are in a pickup truck, driving along. Presumably, the kid is safe in the care of the Sam Elliot guy back at the house. I assume I was driving, but it was really hard to tell. The guy (who I realized looked a lot like Peter MacNicol) was talking about all the mistakes he'd made in his life, and how he'd fucked up this and/or that, and how he just couldn't figure out how to get it right. He was in tears, and the last thing I remember him saying was, "I just wanted to be a lawyer over in Monroe". I was sitting next to him, feeling really compassionate for him, and being fully aware of the whole Helsinki Syndrome thing, but feeling like this guy really WAS trying to get it right, and had made a lot of wrong turns. I could see the glimmer of the person he wanted to be.

That's about when I woke up.

OK, so, themes in this dream:

wanting to help someone in emotional pain/feeling compassion for them: sounds good, but could also be tied in with codependence
seeing the Higher Self in those people, and really wanting to connect to that, and let it shine: I didn't think in terms of the Higher Self in the dream, but that's clearly what it was, and I was wanting to do so from my own Higher Self place, and not from that place that tends towards codependency

Most of the other stuff, I can't really place. I mean, there's the idea of a prairie town, going back to simpler times, but that kinda goes without saying. Not at all sure what the first part of the dream really dealt with.

Anyway, this was the second morning I woke up with a dream lingering, and I thought I should write this one down.