The People Behind My Eyes

As dreams go this one seems less offensive than others but I still have that sick and dissociated feeling. I have come to know in my own dreams food symbolizes life sustenance. More specifically emotional and spiritual needs. I’ve noticed when I’m about to eat something traumatic happens. We’re going to meet friends to lunch or dinner, we’re going inside a diner where there’s cool air and refreshments after a long walk through the wilderness but something happens to stop this ability to refuel and refresh. I’m forced to deal with some sort of trauma on the same energy I had and draw from an already stressed well. This particular dream had the same symbolism in it. In dream therapy you’re suppose to write down the dream as it happened then re-write it the way you wish it happened or to make you the victor instead of the victim, powerful instead of powerless but I’m unable to re-write this one. I can at least copy down what I remember so here goes:

Dream:
The mother and I are going to go to the grocery store the following day. I’m out of food so she’s going to purchase groceries for me. The next day I get up but she stays in bed. The cab we called has arrived but the mother is taking so long to get up that it’s clear she won’t make the run. It’s decided that I’ll go alone. The mother has to look for the money. While she’s looking for her money a news flash comes on that Germany is bombing a small village because they didn’t appreciate the fact that the cost of fuel and food went up beyond what their small budgets could manage. The dream switches to standing in my grandmother’s kitchen. I’m leaning against the sink listening to my friends all speak in German. They’re worried about their family and friends in this small town. The news says the country put up a balloon around the village and the people will be gassed at 3PM if they don’t cease their resistance. The small village does not yield. The time comes around and the country turns on the gas. Everyone in my grandmother’s kitchen, including me, begins to wail the loss of loved one and the loss of life. As people die the plants in my grandmother’s house begin to wilt and dry up. The dream switches back to the mother searching for her money so I can catch the cab that’s been waiting.

She tells me to go look in the mailbox. I go look. It’s not there. She tells me to go look in her hideaway which is a cupboard in the entrance way of the apartment building I lived in just before I left home for good. I look and find the pants that have her money in it but they’re way in the back. I have to get past hot oven coils to reach them. I refuse to get burned reaching for her pants. I tell her where they are and why I can’t get to them. She’s a bit irritated and tells me to sit and wait for her. I tell her the cab has been here a good twenty minutes and that he may leave before she’s ready. She says it’s been more like 30 minutes then slowly walks to the entrance way. I notice she’s wearing thigh high black boots, the kind “made for walking”, a kind she has never, ever worn. It’s strange I think but I don’t care. I just want to go to the store. I’m hungry. She disappears around the corner. I wake up.

COMMENTARY:
There isn’t a lot of switching around in the dream. A few items had double uses, like the hideaway being a hideaway and an oven but other than that there wasn’t a lot of shape shifting or misrepresentation. That is certainly noteworthy.

The grandmother’s mother is of German decent. I think the reason killing so many this way popped up in the dream is because of a discussion about how good people turn to torture. The phenomena of getting a nation to follow a madman willing to kill massive amounts of people for his own agenda has been studied repeatedly. Why did good people become torturous killers? That discussion came up again so I think it showed up in my dream. There’s more to say about it but that entry will have to be for later. Anyway, in the dream I see myself as a plant (a sunflower more specifically) so it is not surprising that when the emotional pain reached a certain level I began to wilt and die. It is also of interest that I watch helplessly as others suffered and died. As a child I watched my sister and brother helplessly and it tore me apart. I hold that guilt still.

RECURRENT DREAM THEME:
Food, dying, needs not met

FEELINGS UPON WAKING:
Dissociative, rocking back and forth, timid, sad. I do not feel rested. I feel like I’m going to have to pull energy from the same un-refreshed source I had yesterday. This is a good example of how PTSD tears a person down. If you ever wonder why people can’t “get over it” this is why. How can you “get over it” when your energy and resources are tapped? This is not mind over matter, it’s a matter of getting the mind to reconcile, come to peace with and live with what it’s been through. That does not happen easily nor does it happen quietly.

Austin’s August

(I don’t trigger mark posts but I will put a trigger on artwork and make the thumbnail smaller if I think it may be upsetting to view. I figure if a person comes to a healing blog they know the subject may not be pretty. Reading about it is one thing, seeing it in living colour is another. I’ll trigger images but not entries.)

Dream: Refuel and Refresh -Tuesday, July 29, 2008-2:25PM EST