A Dream: November 8, 2014

Context: My father was diagnosed with bladder cancer within the last few months and has been undergoing treatment since then. His prognosis is encouraging, but the situation is never truly clear as he has good days and bad days depending on what sort of treatment he has received and how long ago it was last given.

The Dream: I cannot remember the portion leading up to the end of the dream, but my father supposedly jumped into a pool and nearly drowned. The general sense was that he did it on purpose. While everyone else (my sister and others who I could not identify) stood by as he lay (pale and anked) at the bottom of the pool, I jumped in and pulled him out and tried to get the water out of his lungs. I laid him over my shoulder (in the dream, he was much smaller and lighter than he is in real life - he also looked younger and had the body of a young man) and tried to angle his body to force out the water. I did so successfully and he seemed to be breathing again. I was relieved, but later, I was told that he died anyway for reasons that I have either forgotten from the dream or that were never asserted.

After my father died, I felt devastated and people around me seemed not to know or understand why I felt so bad. Everyone was indifferent to my suffering except for my former boss from Japan (Darryl). Darryl showed me a picture of his father, who had died long ago and explained that he knew how I felt because of his experience. The pictures in my dream were utterly clear and distinct. The first one was of a young woman with exceptionally long and wavy hair that looked as though it had been crimped. She looked like she was wearing something like a British school girl uniform. Tangentially, I should mention that Darryl is Australian, but I don't think that had anything to do with the picture's look.

There was another picture which showed Darryl's father with this woman with the super long black hair, apparently from a later date. Her face in each picture was always turned to the side so I could not see her clearly. The man with her was young, had a beard and mustache, and wore glasses. He was dressed casually in blue jeans and a T-shirt and looked a little like the image of a "hippie" or someone from the early 70's. These images were the last thing in the dream before I woke up as I began to engage in lucid dreaming when I saw them. That is, I wondered why these pictures in a dream were so incredibly vivid and real and were of people I'd never seen, but as if I'd seen them before.

Analysis: While I started typing the final paragraph of the dream description, I started to cry for reasons that I believe are related to the meaning of the dream, but were not clear in the moment. I don't think that my father in the dream is related in any way to my real-life situation with my father. I think that his death, resuscitation, and final death are symbolic of a lot of my hopes, dreams, and expectations of my life in America which have "died" again and again no matter what I attempt to do.

I have found a great deal of despair as of late because I feel insignificant and powerless in America. I came back to the U.S. feeling that I had something unique to offer and would find a path for myself through which I could fulfill my potential and offer those who worked with me something of value. I have found that I am largely invisible here and that people are so self-involved and superficial that I cannot be seen at all by anyone, let alone potential employers. I remarked last night to my husband that the prevailing mentality in the U.S. toward people is "meh". No one is seen as valuable or special and everyone is seen as ultimately replaceable including friends and loved ones. People are abandoned for arbitrary and petty reasons. People are rarely "heard" when they speak and mainly valued for their ability to act as an audience. I certainly have found the employment has been exceptionally difficult to find, at least in the way of any job which takes advantage of my talents and skills (which I can say are considerable, but not in areas of commercial value like computer programming or engineering).

I'm somewhat at a loss to understand the relevance of the people in the picture that were so realistic. I have had many experiences in a dream state or in moments between wakefulness and sleep in which I have seen faces which are crystal clear (like watching a movie or looking at a photograph) and they are people who I have never seen before in any way, yet they are clearer than the faces of people in the dreams.

I should note that I rarely "see" people in dreams, but have a sense of who they are. For example, I know my sister is my sister in the dream, but she doesn't look like she does in real life at all. No one looks like themselves in dreams, but I know who they are. This is directly opposite to the experience I have with the faces I see at times or the photo in this dream. I once saw a lecture on the parts of the brain and how the more active parts influence what aspects of dreaming or being in a semi-dream state affect what you may experience more vividly and I dimly recall (so I may be wrong) that seeing faces as I do indicates higher activity in the temporal lobes of the brain. I will discuss this tendency in another context at a later date.

The people in the dream could represent my husband and me. He has a beard, glasses, and, when he was young and he was prone to wearing jeans when he was younger. I have very long hair which is wavy, but it is strawberry blonde and not as long (and is not crimped) as the woman in the picture. However, I find that I always disassociate actual appearance (especially mine) from reality in dreams. Even if the pictures represent my husband and me, I don't see the relevance of them being presented as the deceased parents of my former boss. The only possibility in such a case, and I'm going further afield at this point, is that the young people in the picture represent the selves my husband and I were when we lived in Japan - selves that are now essentially "dead" as the way we were at that time does not exist anymore. 

Interpretation confidence scale rating: Regarding the sense that the "death" of my father is parallel  to my situation with my hopes and dreams in America: 9 Regarding the photo: 5.