Dream Interpretation

June 16.

Last night, a dream about being in a movie theater. 

The portion of the dream that I remember begins outside the theater, with a crowd gathering. The movie is an important and popular one. It has just opened.

 I’m with a group of three other people; we have a block of tickets which were hard to get. The seats are supposed to be together, but when we get into the theater, it’s a bit confusing which is which. The seats are so far away from the screen that I think to myself we’ll need binoculars to see the movie.

I think about sitting next to my daughter Rebecca, but we’ve had an argument recently and I’m not sure it’s okay to sit with her. I check the row directly behind her, thinking I’ll find a seat there; but, oddly, one of the tickets they’ve sold us is for a seat that’s —quite surrealistically—only one inch wide. We decide to go to the management and protest it; but the scene morphs into a moment when I’m in the seat (a normal sized one), all questions about seating having been resolved by themselves. I’m eating some sort of candy or snack. There is a cupboard in front of me in the seats, as though I were in my own home. I open a door and take a package of gummy bears out of it. The bag is already open and more than half eaten. 

Nonetheless, what remains in the bag looks very fresh. They’re Haribo gummy bears (the best!) which have many white ones in the selection—white being my absolute favorite flavor. The woman next to me, attractive but much younger than me, asks for some gummy bears for her kids. I readily agree. I don’t have my usual disturbing, selfish thoughts of keeping them for myself. 

I notice that she’s sitting much too close to me, leaning into me as though there were some form of romantic attraction, but at the same time I realize she’s much too young to be interested in anyone my age. I look at her closely. She tends towards being a redhead and is freckled. I don’t remember what she says to me, but the sense of the conversation marks her as an intellectual.

Interpretation:

The theater represents life. As a whole, it’s an important new event that most of me, the unconscious (the unfamiliar crown of theatergoers) attends. Being there for it is desirable. It’s always new. Yet getting to it (having tickets) requires a special effort.

I represent my own real “I”, and the three people I am with the three centers of my being. Only one of those centers has a clear identity, my daughter. Yet I don’t interact with any of them in this dream; my identity is firmly placed in my three-brained existence, a formed and unified self. The fact that I am hesitant about sitting next to my daughter indicates that at least one of my parts, probably the feeling, which I am most drawn to emotionally — the fact that it has the identity of my child shows how close I am to it, since the other two centers have no clear identities — and I are not getting along too well. Despite its essential function, our relationship has its troubles. The fact that we are very far away from the movie screen and may need special instruments to see what is going on indicates that there is still a long way to go towards full participation in life. This particular concern is forgotten almost as soon as it arises in the dream, because it isn’t a critical consideration. The presumption is that, while imperfect, what is taking place is good enough. It can be accepted.

The tiny seat is an indicator that this new part of myself, this wholly formed identity, is having a bit of trouble finding its real place in life. It has been invited, but it is unsure of where to locate itself. The authority that apportions such matters (the ticket office) has made a mistake.

The fact that this apparent dilemma resolves itself effortlessly and without requiring a protest or confrontation about the matter indicates that this is a natural condition that will easily take care of itself.

There is sustenance available in my new condition. It is just like home, there is food to be had for the taking right in front of me. It consists of things that will satisfy me a great deal and are special (the gummy bears.) The fact that they are already mine and some of them seem to have been eaten in advance indicates that I have been dining on this food before I got to this place in life. Now I need to be generous and share it with new parts of myself with which I am completely unfamiliar (the woman in the seat next to me.) Those parts are much more familiar with me than I am with them. I need to give them the best parts of the food that’s available (the white gummy bears) even though I like them the best. I’m willing to give these away without concern (I don’t have the thought of keeping them for myself) because I understand that it’s the right thing to do. This new part of myself has offspring (her children) that need to be taken care of, but I don’t meet them.

All in all, this dream is an allegory about forming new being and traveling with it to the place where life enters. It is a beginning; the show hasn’t really started yet. There is uncertainty; it appears as though there isn’t a place for me, but then it is effortlessly provided. This represents the action of grace. There is food; again, effortlessly provided. I need to share it with new and unfamiliar parts of my being. All of this takes place in a public place — the movie theater, which represents ordinary life. 

Ordinary life is presented as an important event (the movie), a phenomenon that all of being participates in through relationship. The structure it’s presented in, a movie theater, indicates both a hierarchical organization (the assigned seating in rows) of those relationships in their order, as well as a place where everything needs to be observed. There is a lot of preparation for observation (the crowd seating itself) and that needs to be done in the proper order. Thought needs to be given about where I belong in this (not sitting next to my daughter, that is, parts which I may be in conflict with, and the confusion about the seats.) 

It turns out that watching the movie, at the end of the dream, is not as important as attending to the food that is available and the parts of myself that I am in immediate relationship with. There’s an intimacy to that question which calls for generosity and putting myself aside.

A note to readers:

I will do dream interpretations for free if the dream is an interesting one. Readers who want a dream interpretation are welcome to contact me at doremishock@gmail.com with their dream. Dreams should be described in as much detail as possible. If there are emotional attitudes or other nuanced inflections in the dream, include them.

Guidelines:

1. Readers who submit dreams should be willing to release the rights for the dream along with permission to publish it (anonymously, of course) for blog readers. 

2. Readers who want a dream interpreted need to include their actual name and address, along with a brief (one paragraph) personal background statement so I can know who you are. 

3. Sending in a dream does not guarantee an interpretation; if you receive one it will not be published without your permission.

4. No prank dreams, please.

Be well,

Lee