The Dithering of a District Diva

“Bad dreams, bad dreams, go away; good dreams, good dreams here to stay.”

I had a nightmare. Not the kind where you wake up, terrified, just barely escaping an otherwise certain death, but the kind where you kind of know its a dream, so you’re not too terribly concerned, but still a little shaken at the thought of it.

In the dream, I was walking through a bad part of the city at night by mistake, rolling a suitcase full of cocaine that I’d stolen (Qwwhat??) and this hispanic teenage boy had a gun and he was trying to shoot me. He was aiming, and continued to follow me and aim even when I ran inside of a crowded 24/7 fastfood place. I can’t recall if he actually shot the gun, I just remember being afraid and running with my suitcase full of cocaine and surviving.

What could it mean? Such extreme lunacy resembled nothing in my waking life (except for the fact that I had rolled that same suitcase at night through my relatively safe neighborhood on the way to catch the metro on Wednesday–minus the quualudes, of course). I had to figure out what it meant. So I did what any other 21st century gal would do: I Googled it.

According to Dreammoods.com, there is a method to this madness:

To dream that you have been killed, suggests that your actions are disconnected from your emotions and conscience. Alternatively, the dream refers to drastic changes that are happening in your life. There is a characteristic that you want to get rid of or a habit that you want to end within yourself. Killing represents the killing off of old parts of yourself and old habits.

I am not sure if the first half of this applies, but if you’ve been paying any attention, I am certainly adjusting to drastic changes in my life and there are certainly characteristics and habits that I am consciously trying to get rid of. I would love for those things to die within me. So…does the dream mean its working???

I’m not sure. But I kept looking for further interpretation in the fact that I stole cocaine (I imagine, with intent to distribute? I have no idea).

To dream that you are stealing, denotes that you are deprived and where the stealing takes place (at home, the office, at school….) is indicative of your neediness. Alternatively, it may signify unrealized and unfulfilled goals. You may have set your goals too high.

I believe I was stealing from work in my dream. (I had gone down several flights of stairs in the dream to discover that myco-workers moonlighted as cookers/cutters/measurers/baggers/sellers of coke). Am I deprived at work? I don’t know. They just let me write a blog for our website which was super cool and unexpected so early on in my tenure there. I definitely want to find other opportunities to blog and do legal research and to advance there. Am I needy? I don’t know if my work ethic is strong enough to classify me as “needy.” But I definitely have unrealized and unfulfilled goals. But I “may have set [my] goals too high?” Bite your tongue!

And lastly, what was up with the drugs? I detest all drugs (although alcohol seems to be O.K. with both society and me). The dream dictionary says that:

To dream that you are in possession of or taking drugs, signifies your need for a “quick fix” or an escape from reality. You may be turning to a potentially harmful alternative as an instant escape from your problems. Ask yourself why you need the drugs. What do you hope the drugs will achieve for you?

Yeaaaaah. We discussed this already. But, even moreso than longing for even a fleeting escape from reality, I think there might be some truth to this need for a “quick fix,” as well. My father often comments on the fact that I’m always trying to “cut in line,” afraid I’ll miss the experience and the lessons that come from working your way up from nothing. And maybe that’s true, too. I can’t even publish a research document at work without receiving a day’s worth of red ink all of over it, and already I am hoping for my own weekly column on our site? Perhaps I am overly focused on my long-term goals and need to pull it back and focus on getting to work 30 minutes early to catch up on my emails and prepare for the day. That might be a good start.

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I dreamed again, last night. I dreamed I was invited to a private party back at my undergrad, and I was on the arm of…Jay Z. Which is weird considering he is not my dream guy or anything. And it was less like a date, and more like a protective older brother. He held my hand throughout the whole party and it was sweet and innocent. And when I saw the dee-jay being rude to another patron, I told Jay and he publicly humiliated the dee-jay for me and I felt better. Then, I saw some of my line sisters strolling on the dance floor, so I went to join them and the next thing I know, they were taking me out of the party and put me in a car to do some sorority activity and I was screaming in protest: “No, no! I came with Jay, I have to leave with him. This is my only chance!” But the driving soror wouldn’t pull over. “Do you want to be our soror or not?” Like I had to choose between being in my sorority and the once in a lifetime opportunity to hang out with Jay-Z. Needless to say, I jumped out of the still moving car.

I ran back to the party to find–to my horror–that Jay and his entourage had left. But the manager had seen me with Jay all night and was sympathetic when I started crying in frustration. “Don’t worry, I’ll call his detail and see if they’ll come back for you.” I was told Jay was circling back around to get me and ran outside to meet him. He was in a covered golf-cart (don’t ask me), so I could only see the outline of his body, as if the tarp was directly plastered over him. Security backed the cart into a parking spot and got out. He asked me: “And who are you?” Suddenly, overcome with anxiety and fear, I barely choked out…”I’m…[me].”

To dream that you are good friends with a celebrity represents your idealized version of someone you know in your life.

Das iz true, I do idealize people. But, I like my analysis, better: I want success. All of my ambitions revolve around people of status (hence, my close sibling-like relationship with Jay-Z). And there are people/distractions in my life that I am allowing to keep me from my ambitions in exchange for the comfort of triviality and complacency (thus, my line sisters kidnapping me under protest). I am trying to escape this self-destructive pattern (hence the jumping out of a moving car). And I am on a journey of self-discovery that is nowhere near complete (thus, my nearly inaudible answer to the question: “And who are you?”).

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UPDATE January 30, 2010: O.k. so two months later, I have complete clarity on the Jay-Z dream–enough to conclude that my analysis here was just waaaay off base and the DreamDictionary’s interpretation was much more accurate. I am actually a little disappointed that I didn’t pick up on the simplicity of it at the time. Or maybe, I just wasn’t ready to admit to it.

Jay-Z was clearly a symbol of someone I idealized, and considering that I’m not that big of a fan, its not even slightly challenging for me to figure out who he represented in my life. And “idealized” doesn’t begin to describe what it was. “Caught up,” “obsessed,” “raptured,” any of those might have been more accurate. The dream couldn’t have been a more realistic depiction of what was going on in my head at that time in my life: the desire to be close to this person–in any fashion–was so strong, so compelling, that I would have done anything–i.e. jumped out of a moving car, abandoned my sisters/friends, cried in complete frustration over my loss–to achieve that goal. And, aside from jumping out of a moving car, I did in fact do those things. And as a result, I became nearly inaudible in vocalizing who I was, or what had happened to me, or who I was becoming. Over someone who was almost god-like to me (yet, in reality, was just a man riding around in a covered golf cart!).

I absolutely believe God speaks to us through dreams. And I am absolutely convinced: He has a sense of humor.

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