I will be so glad when the Mars Retrograde is over for the year

I dream a lot. I know everyone does, but I remember most (?) of mine, in detail, color and sound. I always have. I stopped keeping a dream journal when I realized that I was spending nearly an hour a day writing the dreams down, and that I was on my fourth volume for the year. My sister once read a magazine article which said that the "average" person remembers X number (I don't remember the number) of dreams a year. Looking back at one of the books of my dreams, I realized that I remembered that many in 6 weeks. Even knocked out on cold medicine I tend to remember bits and pieces; the last time that happened, I floated up toward consciousness with the thought "Damn, I hate having dreams that foretell my death." That was annoying, because I couldn't remember what came before that point. (oh, and the romantic and possibly Victorian idea that if you die in your dream, you will actually die in reality is false-I've seen my own death several times, and I am still here.)



Last night, I had a series of nightmares. After each one I awoke, practiced some calming breathing patterns and tried to turn the mood. It didn't work.

In the first dream, my younger daughter and I were on the run from the Nazis. If you are of Jewish background and raised post World War II, there is no easier symbol of complete and unbeatable evil for the subconscious to use, than the Nazis and their death camps. In the dream, a friend offered to hide us in his house, even while knowing the danger that he was putting himself in by doing so. Alas, we were betrayed by a neighbor of his, and as I woke up, heart pounding in panic, the final experience was of being in a desperate crowd, being driven by whips and trying unsuccessfully to hold onto my child.

The second dream was far less linear. There was something to do with shopping in a huge food warehouse, full of tropical and summer fruit. Then, I was enclosed in a room with a hungry and possibly rabid, bear. The room was filled with bear-proof hiding places, but they were all already filled with people and there was no room for me in any of them. I had placed all of those people in those places of safety and they trusted me. I could displace any one of them, merely by asking them to move, then I would be safe, but that other person wouldn't be. I tried to escape the bear by climbing to the top of a file cabinet, knowing that if the bear really wanted to, it would have no trouble climbing after me.

The final dream again had a clear story line. I am on some sort of business trip with both people I know very well and some that I cannot now identify. And from the hotel that we were staying at, we had to make a side trip to another city. On the return to the hotel, the taxi exited a tunnel into what looked like a war zone, with tumbled and destroyed buildings. Our hotel, and the buildings directly surrounding it were in a clear and safe area, though. It wasn't safe within the hotel, however all of the threats to me were of the mental, emotional and psychological variety (and of these, I am NOT going to go into any details on the blog.), although at one point, I did say "Fine, I will just go play in traffic!" which sounds far more petulant now than it did, then. In the end, I packed my suitcase, full of iridescent tee shirts and dresses and left. I woke up very depressed at that point.

I spent the morning thinking about each dream and what it might possibly mean. But I have come to the conclusion that individually, they mean less than they do as a set. They are meant to be thought of as chapters in a single story.



Dream #1 I am completely helpless and totally dependant on the aid of someone else. When that aid fails, not only am I destroyed, but so are my works, my hopes, and my future.



Dream #2. I am not completely helpless. I have managed to feed and protect my work as well as others, but only at the price of sacrificing me. This, however was not so much a deliberate sacrifice as much as not thinking things through and re-acting rather than acting deliberately.



Dream #3 I am not helpless. And I carry with me (as long as I remember that I do, and "pack my suitcase.") the tools that I need to recreate and reincarnate who and what I am, although not necessarily who and what I appear to be at any given time. (I apologize for the skimpiness of the details about dream #3, but this is a public blog. I doubt very much that anyone who might read this could send Nazis or bears after me, but the situations of dream # 3 could be recreated by the malign and skilled.)



This is the story of growing up. Not just the growing up from baby to legal drinking or driving age, but the growing up into being the self that you are intended to be. A review, if you will of what I have come out of and where I am heading. I suppose I should be grateful for the Mars rx review that has shown me that there has been progress. But I really wouldn't have minded some peaceful sleep.