Just woke from a dream a few minutes ago. It’s 1:11 am.

In the dream, I went out on some errands with a house-mate / friend. Maybe we saw a movie. I had a couple of minutes while he was in a store, so I went into a cheap, but huge grocery store and convenience. Like one of those gas-station shops, but with a real grocery as well. I saw they had Mellow Yellow, so I picked some up, and a cup of ice. I poured some in the store because I was really thirsty. At checkout, the girl said: “That’ll be $5.05”. I paid and said I thought she was trying to start a fight. She agreed that the price was ridiculous. I left.

Outside, I must have added rum to the soda, and then had another, because later in the dream I was drunk. But now the dream transitioned. I’m in Charles Village, at home. I decide to take a ride on my bike around the neighborhood. Its late afternoon, and a beautiful day. I ride through the heart of the neighborhood, looking for fun places to ride and play with the bike, and see people. I’m at the grocery store (Eddies). There’s an outdoor produce section. Well, it has automatic doors, but its not fully sealed. Its like a produce tent with a front door. I ride around in there and see that they’re closing up. There’s not much produce left on the tables. There’s one clerk taking their time cleaning up, and they don’t mind me riding around in there.

I ride up to the auto-door, and it opens while I’m balanced on the bike. I ride out. I decide to do it again, maybe because I saw two other people in there just before leaving. They’re standing on the far side of the tent from the store, where there’s a flap that lets the farmers take their produce in and out. Maybe they’re farmers? I ride in and park my bike next to them, and stand over the bike and look at them. The younger woman, a blond about my age, says something like “Wow, that’s a nice bike”. And she gives me a genuine smile. I ask her on a date, on the spot. She agrees. Another sweet smile, and I feel totally comfortable with her immediately.

We go outside, and after we both look at my wheels, we agree that we’ll need other transport if we’re going anywhere. I say: “I have my car here as well, lets take that”. My car is magically right there, and we start to get in. She says that she has a place for us to go: a party or dance of some kind, downtown, “just past Chase Street”. I drive us out onto the main road, which turns out to be a country road.

Soon, the country road becomes snowy. Its getting dark. I realize that I’m drunk. I can’t seem to slow the car down to a crawl, and keep carreening around the cars in front of me, and the oncoming traffic. I do this twice and scare myself pretty badly. She gives no hint that she’s scared; only happy to be with me, and concerned that I look anxious. We have some conversation in which I realize that she’s my unconscious princess figure. So its partly a lucid dream. She is beautiful, genuine, warm, exciting. Love itself.

I tell her that I’m drunk and being terribly irresponsible, and that I’m pulling over. Would she drive the rest of the way? She will. She says “Perhaps thats a good idea” when I tell her I’m pulling over. No anger, no judgment of any kind. Just a quiet but powerful advocacy for our happiness. I apologize several times, but she doesn’t respond at all. She just smiles. She doesn’t take the bait. She knows that I know that I’ve put our lives in danger, so what’s to say?

I think I suggest that we end our date there, because I then transition ‘home’, which now turns out to be a house on that country road, where I have roommates, perhaps 4 of them, all bachelors. As I recount the story of my day, my good friend at the house tells me how stupid I was for having 2! rum and yellows (musta been what I made at the grocery earlier), when I know I should only have 1, at most. (apparently I’ve been an ass before. Am I an alcoholic?). Just as I’m starting to explain how I know that this woman is a Goddess, our landlady pulls up in a stationwagon. She’s our mother’s age.

We all come out of the house onto the porch to greet her. Apparently we’re expecting her. She pulls a washer-dryer set out of her trunk. Its connected by a solid hose. Its so small that she can hold it in one hand, by the connecting hose. I think, but don’t say: “That has to be a joke!”. Someone thanks her for the thing. Apparently we’re going to install it ourselves too. She drives off.

I see that at the end of our sidewalk we have a single ground-lamp. The sidewalk goes out to the country road, parallel to our driveway, but 20 yards away. I say to my friend: “You know, it would be funny if we put another light down there so that it looked like our sidewalk was our driveway. People might turn into it by mistake and crunch into the steps”. He agrees that this is funny.

I feel angry at the landlady. I feel excited about the young woman. I see now (in the dream) that I have been living in the wrong manner, that I have to live to be a prince, to honor this young goddess in the same way that she honored me.

I wake up.

………….

I lay awake for awhile thinking about that last part. To live with deep compassion and love of others. Presence, care, advocacy without judgment. Is that Witness? It feels powerful.

And I had a hard lesson regarding my careless attitude towards my health. It seemed to me that my being drunk, smoking, and driving a ratty car (after a ratty bicycle), are all ways to tell other people that I am ashamed of myself. They are shame symbols of some kind. I have to think more about that too.

Though I wasn’t quite ready for our ‘date’ in the dream, because of the above frailties, the whole thing was a step in the right direction. I recognized the woman as a powerful being. I didn’t shrink from the connection, though I felt weak-kneed in her presence for certain. I began to see how she was in the world, and that although I was currently incapable of reciprocating, that I really could, and want to see her again. I don’t even have to wonder if I’ll see her again. I know that I will. But I shouldn’t take this lightly. I have no right to her affections, and she’s been incredibly generous with me so far. And though she knows that we are one and the same person, she’ll never dishonor herself or me by ‘Chase’ing me (Chase street, in the dream, apropos?).

So there was something in there about realizing that there are plenty of wonderful people in the world. The real world. And that I have to bring respect and curiosity and awareness on my own in order to see them, share space with them, and connect. I could start to see the obstacles to this in the dreamscape. And maybe how I have on some level been ‘waiting to be rescued’, though I have not been conscious of this.

The landlady appearing in the dream, and the house full of bachelors is so obviously symbolic that its funny. So I’m in a little boy’s world, hoping to be cared for by someone else. And of course its pathetic, but its important to see more clearly for what it is. I’m alive, and I can now see the false kings and false queens, and most importantly, the princess.

So when do I realize that I’m the prince? How do I get from the unconscious bachelor-boy world to the realm of the hero? It seems a long leap from here. But every time I see the princess I realize that it isn’t so far as to be impossible. Its as close as reaching out a hand.

And I have a few more hours to sleep yet tonight….maybe I’ll understand a bit more… Dreams can be so rich.