To preface this dream: In real life, there is this professor I have a
thing for. I've lately been trying to decide if I should actually do
anything about this attraction towards him, as in... letting him know.
In the dream, I go to his office hours, which seemed to be at an
inappropriate hour. It definitely wasn't nighttime but it was either
very early in the morning (say, 6AM) or very late in the evening (say,
6PM). I can't tell. The reason I suspected it was early or late was
because the air outside had this purplish hue, so it was nature
telling me what time it was, nothing as modern as clocks. I kind of
had the feeling it was later rather than early, though. But I have
nothing to back that up... just a gut feeling.
Normally, I would expect his office hours to be mid-afternoon and this
feeling rang true in the dream too. I KNEW it was a bit odd. I go to
his office but I don't feel "right" there. It's not really his office--
there is a sliding bamboo privacy door but not a real, solid wooden
door. When he pulls the door to the side, opening the room to me, I
sit down outside in the hallway. This way, there is this very literal
line between the two of us... in the room, out of the room.
The words I really want to tell him in my dream? "I want you. I want
to fuck you." The words I want to articulate instead to move to that
point? "I really enjoy your class. You are a wonderful professor." The
words I manage to get out before the entire tone of the conversation
shifts from potential seduction to condescending paternal lecturing?
"Um ahhh ... I..." It's that feeling I get where I am ad-libbing
something very beautiful I have rehearsed and the adrenaline pumping
through me ruins it and makes me forget it all. I'll add on briefly
that this is a professor of rhetoric I am talking about, which could
only possibly add to the interpretation, but I don't really think it's
an important factor. If it were any other professor, it'd be the same
dream, I think.
I am going to seduce him but it's completely out of character for me
and my dream knows it. I am sitting on the floor. He is sitting in a
chair. I don't have the confidence to be on the same level as he is.
He smiles warmly at me and says, "I want to make sure you're getting
the most out of my class. That you're understanding the concepts." He
says this in the same offensive way that people talk down to shy/quiet
people as if they are children. I sense that he does not feel I am as
intelligent as I really am. I am on par with a sorority girl in his
mind. It's a lost cause. In reality, when I interpret this dream, I
realize this kind of response is a normal response from a professor.
They are not personally invested in their students and aside from
students who constantly communicate with them, are unaware of much
about their students' comprehension of the materials. I am offended in
the dream because it greatly deters me from my ultimate objective to
seduce him. The more academically rigid he is, the more stupid I feel
for being sexually attracted. As if sexual attraction were only for
morons.
I hem and haw, trying to get across, "No, I completely do. I love your
class. I do all the readings and I'm always awed by your lectures..."
but again, it just comes out as garbled sentence fragments that amount
to nothing except a confirmation on his part that I am an idiot. I am
very flustered, mildly annoyed by his misunderstanding of who I am. I
feel that he isn't giving me the time and attention I deserve.
Another student appears and I continue to sit there on the floor while
they have a conversation about a graduate seminar he's teaching. She
[the other student] leaves without me ever catching her name or face
and he excuses himself to attend a dinner party.
I laugh to myself because, what a coincidence, I too am attending a
dinner party in the dream! Not possibly the same one he is attending
because it is put together by the family of an ex-boyfriend of mine
from high school. Surprisingly, when I get there, the professor is
there. He knows people there. It is a huge banquet taking place in
what looks like a cleared out, nicely cleaned, and well-lit ... barn.
The dream radiates hues of brown and orange... all the decor... brown.
Accents of orange on dinner plates. Orangish straw-colored lighting.
It all kind of rubs me as a modernized version of a set from Little
House on the Prairie. The table is several tables actually and side-by-
side runs a good 50 feet, capable of seating maybe 100 people. Kind of
reminds me of the first Thanksgiving.
I don't see my ex-boyfriend there, but the professor is the only guy I
know and I feel I can cling to that so I try to sit by him at the very
end of the table.. sort of in this corner that is a little dark, right
by the big barn door. I get away with this for a while but then out of
nowhere, everyone wants to trade seats. The tables become rearranged
so that they no longer form one solid line but now individually split
up tables in a random configuration about the room. I hate it because
I don't know anyone there and the potential for change is bothering
me. The way it was before was already bad as it was, but now I'd be
separated from the only person I "knew" there, who in actuality, I
don't even really KNOW on any personal level.
While we are all milling about the room, reorganizing seats, my
teacher introduces me to his wife, who has arrived late for the party
by a good hour or so. I didn't think he was married. He says, "This is
my wife, Amy. We're not really married. But we've been together for so
many years that we may as well be." She has 3 or 4 children with her.
All very young, toddlers. His. Except I don't see him really
associating with the children. Or her much aside from this very
political, kind front... nothing personal. I think, "Ugh no. Amy? My
name is Aimee. Amy is just a boring variation of the name Aimee. She's
boring." I don't really know this though.. it's merely denial. I'm
disappointed.
No one likes me there. I'm too hard-to-grasp, distant, the only person
I am willing to really open up to is my teacher, but he's too
scattered, not necessarily disinterested in me, but interested and
seeing and talking to everyone. To me, it felt like this was my mind's
way of comprehending the personality I associate with this guy. He has
taught not only all over the country but in Africa as well. Me? I've
been well... not so far as he has. It's not that I didn't want to talk
to other people but I just had no idea how to break in to these groups
and as a result, I was isolated and by myself. The party-goers are all
older than me. I'm in my very early 20s. They're all in their late 30s
to mid-40s. The women look kind of homely and country mom-ish...
large, unflattering sweaters with cats. Mom jeans. Perms. I'm not
really that interested in getting to know any of them because just
from a superficially visual perspective, we have nothing in common.
Everyone begins to leave, the party is ending. I don't remember eating
anything. I stand outside in the parking lot (this building was not
actually a barn after all despite its interior largely resembling
one). As I stand outside in the parking lot, behind the building, I
feel extremely lonely and depressed. I am standing on a large hill the
overlooks the parking lot as cars one-by-one trickle out. The parking
lot is dark and shadowed by the building and as they enter the street,
everything is flooded by sunlight. Everyone is taking off in their
cars and it feels like I have nothing or no one to move forward from
that moment with.
I decide to go home. I'm not in the city I live in from this point
on... I'm actually in a city my parents live in about 150 miles east.
I am on foot, not really sure where I am walking... supposedly home...
but I don't really know for sure. I am standing near the Intercoastal
Waterway as I look to the sky and notice a tornado forming. I'm
standing on the side of a major highway in the grass. There is a huge
bridge ahead of me. Several people scream in unison, people that also
happen to randomly be walking around by the highway, but I just stand
there, paralyzed with fear. The tornado is a dark funnel amidst an
eery cloudy sunlight... the foreground is nothing more than ominous
dark clouds however. Kind of like "a light at the end of the tunnel."
As I see the tornado whip around in the distance, I notice a
silhouette of a man being levitated off the ground by the wind of the
tornado. He doesn't get sucked into the funnel. It is more like the
tornado lifts him and then punts him away. I see him fly a few feet
above the tornado, so he is likely at least 100 feet off the ground,
and then for whatever reason, I see a large "X" form over his
silhouette. He then plummets to the Earth and I cry at the sight,
knowing he'll die as soon as he hits the ground.
I feel like several people saw it happen, but I don't really see any
of the other people because my eyes are so locked on him that my
peripheral vision is nonexistent. I turn around after he starts to
fall and it hits me that there are several tornados. I don't know
where they all came from because there wasn't any sign of inclement
weather during the dinner party... it was all unexpected.
I feel the wind pushing me in all different directions because the
tornados are forming from East, West, North, and South and moving
randomly. I feel the wind is obscuring my vision and I am suddenly
pushed inside a building with a basement. I am in the basement. It's a
bar mitzvah. There are young children in dress clothes, crying.
They're maybe 4, 5, 6 years old. Boys and girls. Maybe 5 of them.
They're lost in the whirlwind of excitement caused by the tornados. I
grab their hands the best I can and I drag them to safety, this small
covered alcove in the basement. I tell them to duck and cover, and
show them how, but I don't do it myself after I see they're safely
doing it correctly. I just watch the building around us, and I see the
ceiling begin to crumble. And I wake up.
I was sort of taken by the presence of children in the dream. At
first, I am treated like a child. Then I see the children of the man
treating me like a child. Then I am an adult helping children. I don't
really think the dream is calling any attention to the process of me
"growing up," because I went through that a year or two ago... I'm
actually maybe a year older than the average college senior undergrad
and I already have a full-time job and my own home so I know that
whatever this is about, it's not that, despite how it may seem as if
so.
I almost wonder if the dream is about feelings that I am just not
doing as much with my life as I hoped. I am beginning to develop
commitment phobia to the city I live in... which makes the professor
actually a really good choice this dream as someone who has seen the
world--I idealize that. I still want to travel before I settle down
but I feel trapped here by a job and a boyfriend. I feel like maybe
the teacher represents one single path I could take that I am
unnecessarily committing myself to without even knowing it that well
and as a result, I am closing myself off to a whole nutritious
"banquet" of other options merely because I am judging them at face
value. I missed out on all the good food and people because I was so
fixated on staying close to him since he broadly fit into my zone of
familiarity. As a side note, I think the tornado is really just
telling me, "Woah, hold on. You have to make decisions that integrate
well with the rest of your life or else your whole life is going to be
one big windy mess." And yet, I have no idea what the children have to
do with any of this.
Aimee
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