In Japanese, "I dreamed that..." is expressed literally as "saw this kind of dream" (こんな夢を見た). This phrasing implies that one has experienced not a specific series of images, but a pattern or template that plays out from time to time and from place to place. It makes me wonder whether dreams are unique to the dreamer. Jung did not think so. According to him, all dreams, especially those involving nudity, or game shows, or both, are almost certainly not original.
I have a bad habit, borne of a hubris in which I imagine myself some prophetic Belteshazzar, of trying to find the deeper meaning in dreams, as if something were being desperately encoded to me during sleep. Or worse, in assuming that it presaged actual events, and only my mental thickness prevented me from seeing revealed truth. I mention hubris for, let us face it: not all those you meet at parties who claim to be psychic are frauds, but all are annoying.
And so... where was I? I had this kind of dream.
A surgical team had fitted me with a prosthetic face. Whether my natural face had been lost in an auto accident, or by consequence of some awful disease, was not known. I was simply in need of a face. Inexplicably, they fitted me with the face of an anatomical mannequin of the kind used to demonstrate musculature. The exposed muscle, tendons, and exposed eyeballs, albeit false, were disturbing. The point of using such a device was lost on me, but they made up for this deficiency by adding yet another mask to fit rather clumsily over the first--the exterior mask being the kind used at masquerade parties, made of white plastic.
I resolved to venture into public only when necessary, and to avoid people at all costs. I had little reason to be out in crowded places, and only one activity lured me outside--walking my dog Fritz. This worked well enough, and I was happy to be out and about with him again, almost forgetting my predicament.
But then he wandered off as he is wont to do, sniffing and marking various patches of ground, posts, and logs. He began to wander too near to a group of people, and I was worried that my appearance would alarm them. Somehow I could not stop him from forging toward this group of people. I became very annoyed at him and finally had to pick him up bodily and whisk him away. I remember trying to avoid a young girl lest my false face frighten her. I felt isolated and could not even bring myself to look in a mirror and see the mask over the mask.
Later, a day or two later after this dream, I took my four-year-old daughter H to the office. I had a few tasks to follow up on, and N wanted to go swimming that evening. H behaved well at first but increasingly grabbed things and wandered around. I suppose I wasn't paying attention to my own annoyance level, but it was the sort of situation in which you think you can finish up in a few more minutes--though you never can with computers.
Before we left, I had to print some documents and pick them up. After the usual delay with the printer, I told H to come with me down the hall to the printer, and she did, but then wandered off when my back was turned. She hadn't gone very far, but it set me off that she'd slipped off in just a few seconds and after I'd been clear in telling her to stay in the copy room. I pulled her back to the office and this made her stubbornly want to go wherever the hell she had been off to. We're very alike in this way--stubborn about what to do next and hair-trigger tempers. It escalated very quickly from there. I tugged, she cried, then I dragged, and she screamed. So I had to exit the building hastily while carrying a shrieking child upside down. Embarrassing at best, and at worst incriminating--it occurred to me that I could be seen as a kidnapper.
Only later did it occur to me that what I had feared in my dream had actually happened--that I lost face. In particular, my carefully groomed outer persona (a word which, after all, originally meant mask) was peeled off quite easily--by an escalation of minor events and ultimately my own loss of control.
I have a bad habit, borne of a hubris in which I imagine myself some prophetic Belteshazzar, of trying to find the deeper meaning in dreams, as if something were being desperately encoded to me during sleep. Or worse, in assuming that it presaged actual events, and only my mental thickness prevented me from seeing revealed truth. I mention hubris for, let us face it: not all those you meet at parties who claim to be psychic are frauds, but all are annoying.
And so... where was I? I had this kind of dream.
A surgical team had fitted me with a prosthetic face. Whether my natural face had been lost in an auto accident, or by consequence of some awful disease, was not known. I was simply in need of a face. Inexplicably, they fitted me with the face of an anatomical mannequin of the kind used to demonstrate musculature. The exposed muscle, tendons, and exposed eyeballs, albeit false, were disturbing. The point of using such a device was lost on me, but they made up for this deficiency by adding yet another mask to fit rather clumsily over the first--the exterior mask being the kind used at masquerade parties, made of white plastic.
I resolved to venture into public only when necessary, and to avoid people at all costs. I had little reason to be out in crowded places, and only one activity lured me outside--walking my dog Fritz. This worked well enough, and I was happy to be out and about with him again, almost forgetting my predicament.
But then he wandered off as he is wont to do, sniffing and marking various patches of ground, posts, and logs. He began to wander too near to a group of people, and I was worried that my appearance would alarm them. Somehow I could not stop him from forging toward this group of people. I became very annoyed at him and finally had to pick him up bodily and whisk him away. I remember trying to avoid a young girl lest my false face frighten her. I felt isolated and could not even bring myself to look in a mirror and see the mask over the mask.
Later, a day or two later after this dream, I took my four-year-old daughter H to the office. I had a few tasks to follow up on, and N wanted to go swimming that evening. H behaved well at first but increasingly grabbed things and wandered around. I suppose I wasn't paying attention to my own annoyance level, but it was the sort of situation in which you think you can finish up in a few more minutes--though you never can with computers.
Before we left, I had to print some documents and pick them up. After the usual delay with the printer, I told H to come with me down the hall to the printer, and she did, but then wandered off when my back was turned. She hadn't gone very far, but it set me off that she'd slipped off in just a few seconds and after I'd been clear in telling her to stay in the copy room. I pulled her back to the office and this made her stubbornly want to go wherever the hell she had been off to. We're very alike in this way--stubborn about what to do next and hair-trigger tempers. It escalated very quickly from there. I tugged, she cried, then I dragged, and she screamed. So I had to exit the building hastily while carrying a shrieking child upside down. Embarrassing at best, and at worst incriminating--it occurred to me that I could be seen as a kidnapper.
Only later did it occur to me that what I had feared in my dream had actually happened--that I lost face. In particular, my carefully groomed outer persona (a word which, after all, originally meant mask) was peeled off quite easily--by an escalation of minor events and ultimately my own loss of control.
Interesting.
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