dreams
The intrusive Lieutenant Uhura
In a dream on August 3, 2022, I am sitting on the toilet in a very small bathroom with the door ajar. The door opens to the outside of the house. I am having a bowel movement. Behind me I can hear water running. Is that from a sink or shower?
Through the partly opened door, I can see Nichelle Nichols, as the younger Lieutenant Uhura in her Star Trek uniform, approaching. I try shutting the door but can’t. I call out “Occupied” but she takes a couple of steps closer. I woke up.
According to a dream dictionary, a bowel movement may indicate I am getting rid of strong emotions or old ways of thinking. Given that the slightly open door made the restroom public, I might also want to heed the dictionary comment, “To dream that you have a bowel movement in a public place suggests that you are expressing regret about something that you said.”
None of this explains the presence of Lieutenant Uhura. Perhaps Nichelle Nichols had heard that the Prophet was visiting Heaven in his dream and insisted on meeting me though others advised her that this was not an appropriate time.
In a dream on August 3, 2022, I am sitting on the toilet in a very small bathroom with the door ajar. The door opens to the outside of the house. I am having a bowel movement. Behind me I can hear water running. Is that from a sink or shower?
Through the partly opened door, I can see Nichelle Nichols, as the younger Lieutenant Uhura in her Star Trek uniform, approaching. I try shutting the door but can’t. I call out “Occupied” but she takes a couple of steps closer. I woke up.
According to a dream dictionary, a bowel movement may indicate I am getting rid of strong emotions or old ways of thinking. Given that the slightly open door made the restroom public, I might also want to heed the dictionary comment, “To dream that you have a bowel movement in a public place suggests that you are expressing regret about something that you said.”
None of this explains the presence of Lieutenant Uhura. Perhaps Nichelle Nichols had heard that the Prophet was visiting Heaven in his dream and insisted on meeting me though others advised her that this was not an appropriate time.
Lieutenant Uhura
The lieutenant's interest in me may be explained by a subsequent dream on August 17. Through haste and carelessness, I drop and break an 8-inch-wide terra cotta planter. I then find myself at a community center in Oakland, California where I am supposed to visit and do some favor for an 11-year-old Black girl. While waiting for instructions, I use the bathroom.
When I return, a man behind a counter gives me an address but I tell him I don’t have a smartphone and will need a map. After a short wait, he returns with a computer printed map with the route highlighted with a colored pen. I notice the route takes me in one direction, then doubles back to a point that is much closer to the starting point. I ask if there is a shorter route, and he says no. The total trip is about 20 miles. He says I need to take along a planter, which is the size of a large garbage bin one would leave at the curb. I say that is much too large and he gives me a plastic planter closer to the size of the one I broke.
I start on my trip, passing through an upscale suburban neighborhood. I want to go faster and reach down to press on the accelerator but discover I am traveling in a wheelchair.
The dream seems to suggest that there is no quick route to success, and I may be handicapped (the wheelchair) by my personal shortcomings. Any rash decision could be shattering (the terra cotta pot). It will be a long and slow journey and the result may provide a growth opportunity (the planter) for a future generation of Black people represented by the Black girl. My involvement in the fate of Black people may have prompted Lieutenant Uhura’s interest in me.
One consolation: If it’s a long journey, I don’t have to worry about dying soon.
Souls on stage: Hooray for Holywood!
For the skeptic and atheist, dream interpretation is one of the last bastions of the ignorant and superstitious. Scientists have tried to disprove theories that dreams are some kind a link to a spiritual world.
One theory advanced by neuroscientists is that dreams are a form of trash removal. Various images cluttering our brains are dumped into a dream trash bin, where our mind tries to make sense of this refuse by weaving these random pieces of junk into a narrative. Finding symbolism in dreams is wishful thinking.
In the first half of the 20th century, the public was more open to a spiritual explanation of dreams. Propelled by the theories of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud regarding the existence of a subconscious, the public was willing to accept the idea that dreams were a way for the subconscious to resolve the problems of waking life by reworking these conflicts through metaphorical narratives. Thus, a dream in which the dreamer is naked would be an allusion to the dreamer's feelings of vulnerability, or to see a spider web in a dream would be a sign that the dreamer felt trapped.
The ideas of Jung and Freud have largely fallen to the wayside in psychology and psychiatry, not because they have been clearly disproven, but because mental health practitioners have chosen medication, not analysis, as a treatment whose costs and results can be easily measured in objective terms and explained to health insurance companies.
Dream researchers seem oblivious to the possibility that dreams are warning signs for our waking lives. They will measure the frequency and length of dreams, and brain and body activity during dreaming, but are largely indifferent to the actual content of dreams.
Inconvenient truths Scientific attempts to discount or explain away the contents of dreams ignore some basic truths:
1. Dreams are not wishful thinking. Most dreams are unpleasant and force the dreamer into stories that are unwanted or frustrating. In addition, the people and creatures encountered in dreams act independently; they seldom follow the wishes of the dreamer.
2. Dreams often exceed the intelligence or imagination of the dreamer, who often is incapable of writing a story or poem that matches the inventiveness or poetic imagery of the dream. That disparity was noted by Frederic Henry Hedge, a New England Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist (1805 – 1890), who observed, “Dreaming is an act of pure imagination, attesting in all men a creative power, which if it were available in waking, would make every man a Dante or a Shakespeare.”
3. Dreams contain content that is foreign to the experience of the dreamer. In one dream, for example, I encountered a dead horse in the side yard of a suburban two-story house. I had never seen such an image in my life and, in the days before the dream, I had not seen or thought of anything related to horses.
From these observations I would deduce that at least some dream content originates outside the dreamer's brain.
Theater of the soul I would suggest that this outside source is a spiritual realm and that the dream is a "skit" performed on a spiritual stage, with a script, direction and performers provided by persons "on the other side." Since imagery in the spiritual realm is completely fluid, these spirits are free to put on the "masks" of people both known and unknown to the dreamer.
The dreamer, then, is merely an actor in a play not of his own creation. In fact, the dream message in some cases may not be directed at the dreamer; it may be a performance intended to educate and/or entertain an audience of "spirits." There are at least three possible audiences for a dream:
1. The dreamer
2. Persons to whom the dreamer tells his dream
3. The "spirits" on the other side who are either actors in the dream or part of an audience watching the dream
The fact that many of the characters in my dreams are famous actors may be a sign that the spiritual world is telling me and my readers that dreams are indeed "plays" or "skits."
Dream creation in the spiritual realm suggests two other conclusions:
1. Since some of the dream content is based on our personal thoughts and experiences, there is no such thing as a "private" thought. Spirits can access any of our thoughts and memories as source material for their dream theater.
2. The spiritual writers, directors and performers in our dreams may be the spirits of people who have died and passed on to the other side. You don't get to sit on your butt in heaven. You are given a job in "Holywood."
I would offer still another hypothesis: The involuntary nature of dreams prepared the brain of primitive man for culture by training him in the "suspension of disbelief." Your ability to immerse yourself in a different reality after reading only two or three sentences in a book may be a result of how dreams train your brain to accept storytelling.
For the skeptic and atheist, dream interpretation is one of the last bastions of the ignorant and superstitious. Scientists have tried to disprove theories that dreams are some kind a link to a spiritual world.
One theory advanced by neuroscientists is that dreams are a form of trash removal. Various images cluttering our brains are dumped into a dream trash bin, where our mind tries to make sense of this refuse by weaving these random pieces of junk into a narrative. Finding symbolism in dreams is wishful thinking.
In the first half of the 20th century, the public was more open to a spiritual explanation of dreams. Propelled by the theories of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud regarding the existence of a subconscious, the public was willing to accept the idea that dreams were a way for the subconscious to resolve the problems of waking life by reworking these conflicts through metaphorical narratives. Thus, a dream in which the dreamer is naked would be an allusion to the dreamer's feelings of vulnerability, or to see a spider web in a dream would be a sign that the dreamer felt trapped.
The ideas of Jung and Freud have largely fallen to the wayside in psychology and psychiatry, not because they have been clearly disproven, but because mental health practitioners have chosen medication, not analysis, as a treatment whose costs and results can be easily measured in objective terms and explained to health insurance companies.
Dream researchers seem oblivious to the possibility that dreams are warning signs for our waking lives. They will measure the frequency and length of dreams, and brain and body activity during dreaming, but are largely indifferent to the actual content of dreams.
Inconvenient truths Scientific attempts to discount or explain away the contents of dreams ignore some basic truths:
1. Dreams are not wishful thinking. Most dreams are unpleasant and force the dreamer into stories that are unwanted or frustrating. In addition, the people and creatures encountered in dreams act independently; they seldom follow the wishes of the dreamer.
2. Dreams often exceed the intelligence or imagination of the dreamer, who often is incapable of writing a story or poem that matches the inventiveness or poetic imagery of the dream. That disparity was noted by Frederic Henry Hedge, a New England Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist (1805 – 1890), who observed, “Dreaming is an act of pure imagination, attesting in all men a creative power, which if it were available in waking, would make every man a Dante or a Shakespeare.”
3. Dreams contain content that is foreign to the experience of the dreamer. In one dream, for example, I encountered a dead horse in the side yard of a suburban two-story house. I had never seen such an image in my life and, in the days before the dream, I had not seen or thought of anything related to horses.
From these observations I would deduce that at least some dream content originates outside the dreamer's brain.
Theater of the soul I would suggest that this outside source is a spiritual realm and that the dream is a "skit" performed on a spiritual stage, with a script, direction and performers provided by persons "on the other side." Since imagery in the spiritual realm is completely fluid, these spirits are free to put on the "masks" of people both known and unknown to the dreamer.
The dreamer, then, is merely an actor in a play not of his own creation. In fact, the dream message in some cases may not be directed at the dreamer; it may be a performance intended to educate and/or entertain an audience of "spirits." There are at least three possible audiences for a dream:
1. The dreamer
2. Persons to whom the dreamer tells his dream
3. The "spirits" on the other side who are either actors in the dream or part of an audience watching the dream
The fact that many of the characters in my dreams are famous actors may be a sign that the spiritual world is telling me and my readers that dreams are indeed "plays" or "skits."
Dream creation in the spiritual realm suggests two other conclusions:
1. Since some of the dream content is based on our personal thoughts and experiences, there is no such thing as a "private" thought. Spirits can access any of our thoughts and memories as source material for their dream theater.
2. The spiritual writers, directors and performers in our dreams may be the spirits of people who have died and passed on to the other side. You don't get to sit on your butt in heaven. You are given a job in "Holywood."
I would offer still another hypothesis: The involuntary nature of dreams prepared the brain of primitive man for culture by training him in the "suspension of disbelief." Your ability to immerse yourself in a different reality after reading only two or three sentences in a book may be a result of how dreams train your brain to accept storytelling.
Finding Lynwood in Heaven
In a dream on April 7, 2022, I am distributing flyers and sections of newspapers to people and businesses up and down Long Beach Boulevard in Lynwood, California, where I had lived as a teenager in the 1960s. Some of the storefronts have Spanish names and I fear, as a white person, I may face hostility, but everyone is civil.
I also distribute materials to some elderly people in chairs. I then see a group of white people but can’t hand them anything because they are dancing, maybe a Slavic folk dance, though I don’t hear any music or any sound at all while I am distributing materials. Nor do I see any vehicles on the boulevard.
I am concerned I am not giving out materials fast enough and haven’t walked down any side streets. (I had a similar job in college, distributing junk mail in suburban neighborhoods, in plastic bags I would hang on doorknobs.)
My female supervisor seems disappointed at my progress but says she would be happy for me to continue.
Finished for the day and tired and achy, I am back at the office where I tell another woman I want to quit and be paid for my work that day. She tells me I had signed up for 60 days and if I quit now, I will owe them money. However, after consulting with my supervisor, she prepares to make out a check to me. I wake up.
My interpretation is that I have visited heaven and the people on the boulevard were living peacefully together, and the Slavic group may have been Ukrainians who have died in the war. I have grown weary of spreading my ideas (the flyers and newspaper sections) but should persist and will be assigned a similar role in the afterlife.
The absence of cars and trucks may suggest people do not need vehicles to get around in heaven. Perhaps there are still infernal combustion engines in hell.
In a dream on April 7, 2022, I am distributing flyers and sections of newspapers to people and businesses up and down Long Beach Boulevard in Lynwood, California, where I had lived as a teenager in the 1960s. Some of the storefronts have Spanish names and I fear, as a white person, I may face hostility, but everyone is civil.
I also distribute materials to some elderly people in chairs. I then see a group of white people but can’t hand them anything because they are dancing, maybe a Slavic folk dance, though I don’t hear any music or any sound at all while I am distributing materials. Nor do I see any vehicles on the boulevard.
I am concerned I am not giving out materials fast enough and haven’t walked down any side streets. (I had a similar job in college, distributing junk mail in suburban neighborhoods, in plastic bags I would hang on doorknobs.)
My female supervisor seems disappointed at my progress but says she would be happy for me to continue.
Finished for the day and tired and achy, I am back at the office where I tell another woman I want to quit and be paid for my work that day. She tells me I had signed up for 60 days and if I quit now, I will owe them money. However, after consulting with my supervisor, she prepares to make out a check to me. I wake up.
My interpretation is that I have visited heaven and the people on the boulevard were living peacefully together, and the Slavic group may have been Ukrainians who have died in the war. I have grown weary of spreading my ideas (the flyers and newspaper sections) but should persist and will be assigned a similar role in the afterlife.
The absence of cars and trucks may suggest people do not need vehicles to get around in heaven. Perhaps there are still infernal combustion engines in hell.
The Case of the Demon Dog
While the conventional wisdom is to dismiss dream interpretation as an amusing and harmless parlor game, ignoring the meaning of a dream can kill you.
In December 2006 an acquaintance related to me a dream he kept having. In the dream, he is a bum wearing tattered clothes, he can't find a parked car, he fights someone, he sees a pretty butter dish, and he encounters a vicious black dog that is trying to scare him away.
I advised him that, according to a dream dictionary, dark demon dogs protect graveyards and are guardians of the underworld. The dog may be chasing him away from thoughts of death. Searching for a parked car indicated that he did not know where he wanted to go in life. To dream that he is a bum revealed that he is feeling like a failure or outcast. Tattered clothes suggested that he is too concerned about how other people see him. Fighting indicated inner turmoil.
The one seemingly benign image, the pretty butter dish, was a sign that he needed gratification and pleasure "dished out" to him.
With recurring dreams, the message may be so important or powerful that it just will not go away. The frequent repetition of the dream should force him to pay attention and confront the dream.
However, I also told him that he was free to dismiss these interpretations as just a bunch of New Age nonsense. "It's your call," I told him. I was speaking to a person with a much richer life experience than me, was a success in the business community, and seemed in good spirits on the phone. Nine months later he committed suicide. He had hidden his problems from everyone except his wife.
The time gap between the dreams and the death may seem large enough for many to dismiss these events as coincidences. However, on September 1, 2007, I was watching on TV the movie U.S. Marshals, starring Tommy Lee Jones and Wesley Snipes. In one scene, Jones and his partner followed a suspect to a chapel in a graveyard. As they waited outside, the partner stood behind a tombstone engraved with my last name, URBANEK.
The next day, my acquaintance called to ask if I was related to a woman named Urbanek who he had read about in a newspaper obituary. Like my mother, she had been born in Texas and had come to California in the 1930s. No, I was not related. On September 9 he shot himself. Apparently, the juxtaposition of the movie tombstone and the newspaper obituary, both with my last name, was a sign that I was dealing with a "grave" situation.
While the conventional wisdom is to dismiss dream interpretation as an amusing and harmless parlor game, ignoring the meaning of a dream can kill you.
In December 2006 an acquaintance related to me a dream he kept having. In the dream, he is a bum wearing tattered clothes, he can't find a parked car, he fights someone, he sees a pretty butter dish, and he encounters a vicious black dog that is trying to scare him away.
I advised him that, according to a dream dictionary, dark demon dogs protect graveyards and are guardians of the underworld. The dog may be chasing him away from thoughts of death. Searching for a parked car indicated that he did not know where he wanted to go in life. To dream that he is a bum revealed that he is feeling like a failure or outcast. Tattered clothes suggested that he is too concerned about how other people see him. Fighting indicated inner turmoil.
The one seemingly benign image, the pretty butter dish, was a sign that he needed gratification and pleasure "dished out" to him.
With recurring dreams, the message may be so important or powerful that it just will not go away. The frequent repetition of the dream should force him to pay attention and confront the dream.
However, I also told him that he was free to dismiss these interpretations as just a bunch of New Age nonsense. "It's your call," I told him. I was speaking to a person with a much richer life experience than me, was a success in the business community, and seemed in good spirits on the phone. Nine months later he committed suicide. He had hidden his problems from everyone except his wife.
The time gap between the dreams and the death may seem large enough for many to dismiss these events as coincidences. However, on September 1, 2007, I was watching on TV the movie U.S. Marshals, starring Tommy Lee Jones and Wesley Snipes. In one scene, Jones and his partner followed a suspect to a chapel in a graveyard. As they waited outside, the partner stood behind a tombstone engraved with my last name, URBANEK.
The next day, my acquaintance called to ask if I was related to a woman named Urbanek who he had read about in a newspaper obituary. Like my mother, she had been born in Texas and had come to California in the 1930s. No, I was not related. On September 9 he shot himself. Apparently, the juxtaposition of the movie tombstone and the newspaper obituary, both with my last name, was a sign that I was dealing with a "grave" situation.
Open cathedral, open heart
In a dream from about 1993, I am standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room of an old house. I am naked except for a white towel I clutch around my waist. Robed members of a church choir file through the living room and out the front door, on their way to church. They pay me no mind.
I need to get some clothes on. I head up a staircase to my bedroom. I open the door. Nine middle-aged women from a liberal Methodist church I had been attending are sitting around the room, some on my bed and others on chairs. I tell them I have paid for the room; I need to get dressed and they cannot meet there. They seem disappointed but understand and file out of the room. I suggest that maybe they can come back when I have finished dressing. They don’t respond.
I open a dresser but there are no clothes inside. I look under the bed. Nothing. As I peer up, I first see the shoes then the black evening dress of a young woman. As I look at her, I realize it is my mother when she was young. She has been out dancing. I stand up. She wants me to come over and hug her, but I know I cannot do that unless I drop the towel first. I step toward her and let go of the cloth.
Now I am flying through the sky, looking down at a small valley in a pine forest. Rising from the clearing are the gray spires of a modern church or cathedral. As I draw closer, I see that the spires are like the points of a crown. The church has no roof; the floor is open to the sky.
In a dream from about 1993, I am standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room of an old house. I am naked except for a white towel I clutch around my waist. Robed members of a church choir file through the living room and out the front door, on their way to church. They pay me no mind.
I need to get some clothes on. I head up a staircase to my bedroom. I open the door. Nine middle-aged women from a liberal Methodist church I had been attending are sitting around the room, some on my bed and others on chairs. I tell them I have paid for the room; I need to get dressed and they cannot meet there. They seem disappointed but understand and file out of the room. I suggest that maybe they can come back when I have finished dressing. They don’t respond.
I open a dresser but there are no clothes inside. I look under the bed. Nothing. As I peer up, I first see the shoes then the black evening dress of a young woman. As I look at her, I realize it is my mother when she was young. She has been out dancing. I stand up. She wants me to come over and hug her, but I know I cannot do that unless I drop the towel first. I step toward her and let go of the cloth.
Now I am flying through the sky, looking down at a small valley in a pine forest. Rising from the clearing are the gray spires of a modern church or cathedral. As I draw closer, I see that the spires are like the points of a crown. The church has no roof; the floor is open to the sky.
I have never been truly in love. When you are in love, your soul is naked to the person you love. The women in my life are the women in the bedroom in the dream. I barely know them because I did not bare my soul to them. No matter who I was with, I was always alone. The last person to see my naked soul was my mother. When you are a child, you show everything in your heart. When you open your heart, your soul is a cathedral open to heaven.
About six years later, I saw in a Fairfield, California art gallery a composite picture created by photographer Scott Mutter. It depicts an eagle soaring above an open cathedral in a wooded mountain area. Naturally, I bought it and hung it above the headboard of my bed. I now dream under the picture from my dream.
Accepting my inner weasel
In a dream I had in March 2002, I got into a fight with George Costanza, that balding, short weasel played by Jason Alexander on Seinfeld. I knocked him to the floor and put my foot on his face. What had I done? He is my best friend, perhaps my only friend. I kneeled before him, begging forgiveness. He shrugged off the incident.
Three months later, George again appeared in a dream. He was being interviewed on a talk show and was joking about his large bushy toupee. He took it off, revealing a smaller toupee underneath. He then pulled that off, showing his balding head. Suddenly, from backstage, my mother, who was wearing a fur coat, stepped behind George and kissed him on the head. George was surprised but not upset; he thought it was all a big joke.
In the first dream, I was trying to defeat my "inner weasel," that part of me that is insecure and selfish, but then realized I needed that part of my personality. In the second dream, the baldness represented my vulnerability. The more I reveal my weaknesses (removing the toupees), the more I am "blessed" by the Mother Goddess.
In a dream I had in March 2002, I got into a fight with George Costanza, that balding, short weasel played by Jason Alexander on Seinfeld. I knocked him to the floor and put my foot on his face. What had I done? He is my best friend, perhaps my only friend. I kneeled before him, begging forgiveness. He shrugged off the incident.
Three months later, George again appeared in a dream. He was being interviewed on a talk show and was joking about his large bushy toupee. He took it off, revealing a smaller toupee underneath. He then pulled that off, showing his balding head. Suddenly, from backstage, my mother, who was wearing a fur coat, stepped behind George and kissed him on the head. George was surprised but not upset; he thought it was all a big joke.
In the first dream, I was trying to defeat my "inner weasel," that part of me that is insecure and selfish, but then realized I needed that part of my personality. In the second dream, the baldness represented my vulnerability. The more I reveal my weaknesses (removing the toupees), the more I am "blessed" by the Mother Goddess.
A little help from my Friends
In a dream I had in September 2003, Chandler Bing from Friends is attempting to write a screenplay or novel of epic proportions. However, he is advised that he would have more success if he wrote about his bashful bladder syndrome: the inability to urinate on demand or in the presence of others.
Next, Chandler is alone in an upscale dining car on a train. He has already finished his meal and paid the waiter. The waiter returns with his change, which is all in coins, and stacks them in two large piles on the tablecloth. Chandler starts stuffing the coins into his pockets but realizes he does not have enough room, and that he cannot stuff them up a third "pocket": his penis.
Chandler clearly represents me as I have similar writing ambitions and had the same bladder problem. The dream seemed to suggest that there is something about my shy bladder syndrome (avoidant paruresis) that is more important than anything else I have written on this website.
My presence on the train suggests my life is on a predetermined track. Traveling by train is also an old-fashioned form of transportation associated with romantic liaisons. Alas, since I am traveling alone, the dream did not bode well for my love life. The piles of coins suggest stinginess or hoarding and my inability to shove them up my penis may reflect a kind of vagina envy. Women can use their sexuality/vagina to "collect and store" money. I don't have that "third pocket."
Strong voices In a dream from January 2004, I am in my own temple or church, which has dramatic lighting and other special effects. People who stand up and speak in the temple find their voices are like thunder. Three of my followers enter small, round columns from which huge eyes emerge on top.
Ross Gellar arrives to debunk this magical temple. He pulls open large curtains to find contraptions that explain the phenomena. Gellar shows that he can also change his voice. At this point, even I am convinced and wonder if I have wasted all my time on my spiritual endeavors.
Ross starts looking for a woman hiding in the temple. She must emerge soon, says Gellar, because she can only breathe for five minutes while hiding. He opens various large wooden cabinets around the altar, but they are empty. I then see a plaque that shows the profile of a woman and her daughter who disappeared a few years ago in the temple and were never found.
If Ross, like Chandler, represents me, then the dream indicates that I am skeptical of my own spiritual abilities and beliefs. The machine behind the curtain suggests that scene in The Wizard of Oz in which the wizard is revealed to be a mere mortal. I have three followers or three aspects of my being who have great perception, as indicated by the prominent eyes on the columns. The woman in hiding may be the dark goddess who figures prominently in many of my theories. The plaque seemed suggestive of a Madonna and child tableau.
Mismatch In a dream on April 15, 2005, I am at my wedding in what seems to be a courtyard of a mountain resort. As the ceremony draws near, I pick up a gray sport coat off a bed in the courtyard and put it on. Apparently, I will not be wearing a tuxedo.
In the distance I see Rachel Green confiding to someone that she would have married me if I had told her how I felt about her. Instead, I will be marrying her friend (but not one of the Friends). The bride approaches. She appears to be wearing a cream-colored or light pink wedding gown and veil. I barely recognize her. She appears old, unattractive and unhappy. Now, members of the wedding party start to hug. My mother joins the group and gives and receives hugs. I then remember that I had forgotten to introduce my mother to anyone.
At the time of this dream, I had met a woman through Match.com. After three dates, we were on the verge of a more intimate relationship, though I was not emotionally involved. The dream seemed to suggest I should be looking for something more, so I called off the relationship. I did have an off-and-on, hot and cold, Ross and Rachel-type relationship with a woman who lives in Southern California. The dream may have been suggesting I should marry her.
On the other hand, when I posted this dream on a dream forum, a woman replied that all wedding dreams are bad news. That assessment seems to reinforce my experience of finding that the subject of marriage engenders extremely high expectations, an ongoing low-level anxiety attack, and an unpleasant breakup. I have always been puzzled by this predicament. I was never a person looking for a string of sexual conquests. I always felt I was a level-headed person who would have no problem settling down.
Strange poker In a dream on May 28, 2005, I am at a long, narrow table playing poker. Each player gets nine cards and must discard four to leave the best five. Because of the shape of the table, I cannot see the faces of several of the players.
The cards, even the number cards, all have pictures on both sides, but the card designation is split. For example, the five of diamonds would have the number five on one side and the diamond on reverse. Thus, it is difficult to quickly tell the quality of your hand. It occurred to me later that your opponent can see at least part of your hand.
The chips seem translucent, in neutral colors. I don't know their value and ask the player to my right, who says they are each worth 1,000. I play a second hand but feel rushed because it is hard to figure out the cards. I put in one chip and play what seems to be a heart flush, although I wonder if one of the cards was really a diamond. Nobody examines my cards to confirm I have a winning hand.
The poker game is followed by a short party or some other social event. As I leave and walk through the courtyard of what seems to be a castle, I am intercepted by Phoebe Buffay, who is wearing a medieval costume. She asks, in an annoyed tone, "Are you sure you want to come to another of our events? You don't believe women should plan their own pregnancies."
I am trying to reply with some statistic like, "For 90 percent of history, 90 percent of women didn't choose when to become pregnant," but a carriage suddenly pulls up and I step inside.
Inside the carriage, a seat and shoulder belt automatically close on me. I assume this is a horse-drawn carriage though I never see any horses. In front of me, in a dark compartment, are two people facing forward, their heads and shoulders covered by a single blanket. I suspect something is wrong. I call out to them, demanding an explanation, and they make some reply or gesture that confirms I am being kidnapped.
I manage to struggle out of the seat and shoulder belt, and I am about to force open the door of the carriage when the dream ends.
The poker part of the dream could mean that the rules of the Game of Life are arbitrary and easily misunderstood, and other players may see a side of your life (the two-sided cards) that is not readily visible to yourself. There seems to be an historical dichotomy: A woman from the Middle Ages making a contemporary statement about abortion, and a carriage that has features of a modern taxi. The kidnapping may indicate that one is abducted into and out of the dream world; the journey in the spiritual world is not in your control.
Phoebe's "right to choose" statement had me confused for a long time. Are the spirits speaking to me in my dream all pro-choice? I had an epiphany on January 1, 2006. If I am certain abortion is wrong, I don't need to go to the dream world for validation. Dreams address uncertainty and doubt. Phoebe was telling me to stand on my own. If I am sure of my convictions, I don't need dreams as a crutch.
Party pooper In a dream on June 1, 2007, I am at a black-tie dinner with Friends cast members. We are seated at a large round table in the banquet room of a hotel. It is time for me to leave. Joey Tribbiani has promised to drive me home, but he protests, "It's only 6 p.m." Nevertheless, he relents, and we leave the table.
In the hotel lobby, I am a few steps ahead of Joey, who has fallen back and is walking among a group of people. I exit the building and wait on the sidewalk for Joey. He doesn't show up. After waiting some more, I walk to his car in the parking lot and wait for him there, but he never shows up.
The dream seems to suggest I am a party pooper who can never be a spontaneous, sociable person like Joey. However, since I am the incarnation of the Egyptian sun-god “Re at noon,” I must be home before the sun touches the earth, so leaving at 6 p.m. is not unreasonable. I can never be a "night person."
Like duh In a dream on October 4, 2010, I am in the living room of a party or gathering with several women. I see a naked woman on the carpet, but her breasts seem fuzzy and they appear flat with no nipples. When I look again, though, I see full breasts and nipples. Next, a girl, maybe 8 or 9 years old, is sitting next to me on a sofa. She lingers close to me. I don't know how she got into the dream. Perhaps she slipped into my subconscious a few days earlier when I read the first few paragraphs of Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, which I found on a shelf of the local Target store. In the book, Chelsea Handler describes how, when eight years old, she attended a sleepover party where girls got "the feeling" by "violently rubbing their vaginas."
Next, in the dream, I go alone to a bedroom. My mother is on one side of the bed, concealed under the sheets. She says, “Sit down.” I sit on the side of the bed and say, “When this crowd leaves in two or three hours, we can go back to our own bedrooms.” She says, “There were a lot of women in there.” I lie down. She turns to me and says, “Like duh.” But it’s not my mother. It’s Courtney Cox in lingerie. As I am about to embrace her, I wake up.
The “like duh” seems to be an admonition that I should recognize the obvious symbolism: I am projecting my mother onto the women I see, which is causing a problem in my sex life. While I had a seemingly satisfactory relationship in the 1980s, that was with a woman more than 20 years older than me. The Courtney Cox in the dream seemed to be the actress of today, not the younger Monica from Friends, perhaps a suggestion that I need to put the past behind me. By "coincidence," Cox starred in Cougar Town, a TV show about older women dating younger men.
A dream like this would have been more helpful 20 years ago. Oh well, better late than never.
In a dream I had in September 2003, Chandler Bing from Friends is attempting to write a screenplay or novel of epic proportions. However, he is advised that he would have more success if he wrote about his bashful bladder syndrome: the inability to urinate on demand or in the presence of others.
Next, Chandler is alone in an upscale dining car on a train. He has already finished his meal and paid the waiter. The waiter returns with his change, which is all in coins, and stacks them in two large piles on the tablecloth. Chandler starts stuffing the coins into his pockets but realizes he does not have enough room, and that he cannot stuff them up a third "pocket": his penis.
Chandler clearly represents me as I have similar writing ambitions and had the same bladder problem. The dream seemed to suggest that there is something about my shy bladder syndrome (avoidant paruresis) that is more important than anything else I have written on this website.
My presence on the train suggests my life is on a predetermined track. Traveling by train is also an old-fashioned form of transportation associated with romantic liaisons. Alas, since I am traveling alone, the dream did not bode well for my love life. The piles of coins suggest stinginess or hoarding and my inability to shove them up my penis may reflect a kind of vagina envy. Women can use their sexuality/vagina to "collect and store" money. I don't have that "third pocket."
Strong voices In a dream from January 2004, I am in my own temple or church, which has dramatic lighting and other special effects. People who stand up and speak in the temple find their voices are like thunder. Three of my followers enter small, round columns from which huge eyes emerge on top.
Ross Gellar arrives to debunk this magical temple. He pulls open large curtains to find contraptions that explain the phenomena. Gellar shows that he can also change his voice. At this point, even I am convinced and wonder if I have wasted all my time on my spiritual endeavors.
Ross starts looking for a woman hiding in the temple. She must emerge soon, says Gellar, because she can only breathe for five minutes while hiding. He opens various large wooden cabinets around the altar, but they are empty. I then see a plaque that shows the profile of a woman and her daughter who disappeared a few years ago in the temple and were never found.
If Ross, like Chandler, represents me, then the dream indicates that I am skeptical of my own spiritual abilities and beliefs. The machine behind the curtain suggests that scene in The Wizard of Oz in which the wizard is revealed to be a mere mortal. I have three followers or three aspects of my being who have great perception, as indicated by the prominent eyes on the columns. The woman in hiding may be the dark goddess who figures prominently in many of my theories. The plaque seemed suggestive of a Madonna and child tableau.
Mismatch In a dream on April 15, 2005, I am at my wedding in what seems to be a courtyard of a mountain resort. As the ceremony draws near, I pick up a gray sport coat off a bed in the courtyard and put it on. Apparently, I will not be wearing a tuxedo.
In the distance I see Rachel Green confiding to someone that she would have married me if I had told her how I felt about her. Instead, I will be marrying her friend (but not one of the Friends). The bride approaches. She appears to be wearing a cream-colored or light pink wedding gown and veil. I barely recognize her. She appears old, unattractive and unhappy. Now, members of the wedding party start to hug. My mother joins the group and gives and receives hugs. I then remember that I had forgotten to introduce my mother to anyone.
At the time of this dream, I had met a woman through Match.com. After three dates, we were on the verge of a more intimate relationship, though I was not emotionally involved. The dream seemed to suggest I should be looking for something more, so I called off the relationship. I did have an off-and-on, hot and cold, Ross and Rachel-type relationship with a woman who lives in Southern California. The dream may have been suggesting I should marry her.
On the other hand, when I posted this dream on a dream forum, a woman replied that all wedding dreams are bad news. That assessment seems to reinforce my experience of finding that the subject of marriage engenders extremely high expectations, an ongoing low-level anxiety attack, and an unpleasant breakup. I have always been puzzled by this predicament. I was never a person looking for a string of sexual conquests. I always felt I was a level-headed person who would have no problem settling down.
Strange poker In a dream on May 28, 2005, I am at a long, narrow table playing poker. Each player gets nine cards and must discard four to leave the best five. Because of the shape of the table, I cannot see the faces of several of the players.
The cards, even the number cards, all have pictures on both sides, but the card designation is split. For example, the five of diamonds would have the number five on one side and the diamond on reverse. Thus, it is difficult to quickly tell the quality of your hand. It occurred to me later that your opponent can see at least part of your hand.
The chips seem translucent, in neutral colors. I don't know their value and ask the player to my right, who says they are each worth 1,000. I play a second hand but feel rushed because it is hard to figure out the cards. I put in one chip and play what seems to be a heart flush, although I wonder if one of the cards was really a diamond. Nobody examines my cards to confirm I have a winning hand.
The poker game is followed by a short party or some other social event. As I leave and walk through the courtyard of what seems to be a castle, I am intercepted by Phoebe Buffay, who is wearing a medieval costume. She asks, in an annoyed tone, "Are you sure you want to come to another of our events? You don't believe women should plan their own pregnancies."
I am trying to reply with some statistic like, "For 90 percent of history, 90 percent of women didn't choose when to become pregnant," but a carriage suddenly pulls up and I step inside.
Inside the carriage, a seat and shoulder belt automatically close on me. I assume this is a horse-drawn carriage though I never see any horses. In front of me, in a dark compartment, are two people facing forward, their heads and shoulders covered by a single blanket. I suspect something is wrong. I call out to them, demanding an explanation, and they make some reply or gesture that confirms I am being kidnapped.
I manage to struggle out of the seat and shoulder belt, and I am about to force open the door of the carriage when the dream ends.
The poker part of the dream could mean that the rules of the Game of Life are arbitrary and easily misunderstood, and other players may see a side of your life (the two-sided cards) that is not readily visible to yourself. There seems to be an historical dichotomy: A woman from the Middle Ages making a contemporary statement about abortion, and a carriage that has features of a modern taxi. The kidnapping may indicate that one is abducted into and out of the dream world; the journey in the spiritual world is not in your control.
Phoebe's "right to choose" statement had me confused for a long time. Are the spirits speaking to me in my dream all pro-choice? I had an epiphany on January 1, 2006. If I am certain abortion is wrong, I don't need to go to the dream world for validation. Dreams address uncertainty and doubt. Phoebe was telling me to stand on my own. If I am sure of my convictions, I don't need dreams as a crutch.
Party pooper In a dream on June 1, 2007, I am at a black-tie dinner with Friends cast members. We are seated at a large round table in the banquet room of a hotel. It is time for me to leave. Joey Tribbiani has promised to drive me home, but he protests, "It's only 6 p.m." Nevertheless, he relents, and we leave the table.
In the hotel lobby, I am a few steps ahead of Joey, who has fallen back and is walking among a group of people. I exit the building and wait on the sidewalk for Joey. He doesn't show up. After waiting some more, I walk to his car in the parking lot and wait for him there, but he never shows up.
The dream seems to suggest I am a party pooper who can never be a spontaneous, sociable person like Joey. However, since I am the incarnation of the Egyptian sun-god “Re at noon,” I must be home before the sun touches the earth, so leaving at 6 p.m. is not unreasonable. I can never be a "night person."
Like duh In a dream on October 4, 2010, I am in the living room of a party or gathering with several women. I see a naked woman on the carpet, but her breasts seem fuzzy and they appear flat with no nipples. When I look again, though, I see full breasts and nipples. Next, a girl, maybe 8 or 9 years old, is sitting next to me on a sofa. She lingers close to me. I don't know how she got into the dream. Perhaps she slipped into my subconscious a few days earlier when I read the first few paragraphs of Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, which I found on a shelf of the local Target store. In the book, Chelsea Handler describes how, when eight years old, she attended a sleepover party where girls got "the feeling" by "violently rubbing their vaginas."
Next, in the dream, I go alone to a bedroom. My mother is on one side of the bed, concealed under the sheets. She says, “Sit down.” I sit on the side of the bed and say, “When this crowd leaves in two or three hours, we can go back to our own bedrooms.” She says, “There were a lot of women in there.” I lie down. She turns to me and says, “Like duh.” But it’s not my mother. It’s Courtney Cox in lingerie. As I am about to embrace her, I wake up.
The “like duh” seems to be an admonition that I should recognize the obvious symbolism: I am projecting my mother onto the women I see, which is causing a problem in my sex life. While I had a seemingly satisfactory relationship in the 1980s, that was with a woman more than 20 years older than me. The Courtney Cox in the dream seemed to be the actress of today, not the younger Monica from Friends, perhaps a suggestion that I need to put the past behind me. By "coincidence," Cox starred in Cougar Town, a TV show about older women dating younger men.
A dream like this would have been more helpful 20 years ago. Oh well, better late than never.
The horns of a prophet
In a dream on December 19, 2021, I saw a half-naked wretched man sitting on the ground. Horns start growing out of his head and he looks down to see if he still has a penis. I thought the figure was me and I had been transformed into a demon by my “satanic” writings.
However, three days later, while perusing the news feed on my home page, I ran across the Live Science feature “20 of the most bizarre stories from the Bible,” which stated that when Moses returned from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, he may have grown horns because a word used in the original text, “garan,” really was “geren,” the Hebrew word for horn.
Some people in the Middle Ages believed that Moses had grown horns and that "much medieval artwork— as well as earlier and later work—depicts a Moses with horns" . . . the iconography of the ancient Near East "shows the prevalence of horns on gods and goddesses, the association of horns with exceptional beings and special power."
In a dream on December 19, 2021, I saw a half-naked wretched man sitting on the ground. Horns start growing out of his head and he looks down to see if he still has a penis. I thought the figure was me and I had been transformed into a demon by my “satanic” writings.
However, three days later, while perusing the news feed on my home page, I ran across the Live Science feature “20 of the most bizarre stories from the Bible,” which stated that when Moses returned from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, he may have grown horns because a word used in the original text, “garan,” really was “geren,” the Hebrew word for horn.
Some people in the Middle Ages believed that Moses had grown horns and that "much medieval artwork— as well as earlier and later work—depicts a Moses with horns" . . . the iconography of the ancient Near East "shows the prevalence of horns on gods and goddesses, the association of horns with exceptional beings and special power."
Our Lady of the Rose Tree
In a dream on January 26, 2022, I am snipping roses off a tree-sized rose bush to give to a woman. I suggest to the woman that I graft new roses onto two of the lusher branches and she agrees.
Something about the dream seemed familiar. In the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico, the Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego, an Aztec convert to Christianity, on December 9 and 12, 1531. On her second appearance, she ordered him to collect roses. In an audience with a bishop, Diego opened his cloak, letting dozens of roses fall to the floor and revealing the image of Mary imprinted on the inside of the cloak.
Perhaps my grafting onto the rose tree is adding new lines of spirituality to Catholic traditions.
In a dream on January 26, 2022, I am snipping roses off a tree-sized rose bush to give to a woman. I suggest to the woman that I graft new roses onto two of the lusher branches and she agrees.
Something about the dream seemed familiar. In the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico, the Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego, an Aztec convert to Christianity, on December 9 and 12, 1531. On her second appearance, she ordered him to collect roses. In an audience with a bishop, Diego opened his cloak, letting dozens of roses fall to the floor and revealing the image of Mary imprinted on the inside of the cloak.
Perhaps my grafting onto the rose tree is adding new lines of spirituality to Catholic traditions.
Image Cloud, Weebly stock photo; Nichelle Nichols, NASA Recruiter photo, public domain; Untitled (Eagle) © Scott Mutter, fair use