Last night, around midnight, I dreamed of a woman perhaps in her mid-80's, one at peace with herself, who was quite happy and a person others wanted to be like.
She was serene in personality and wise in her words, loving in her smile, joyful and peaceful. Someone told me she was Edith Perlman, a mother of a friend I had known in childhood. But whoever she is, she set a wonderful example as to how to love life and welcome mankind and all living creatures. My guess is she is reflective of my having watched YouTube videos yesterday of the Vietnamese Monk Thich Nhat Hanh, but I have no idea why the image became possibly someone I had known many years ago.
3 am: in a later dream Anne and I drove slowly through a crowd of boisterous teens and 20 somethings roaming out of control as has happened when the Lakers have won a basketball championship, when those people overturned cars, smashed windows and set buildings on fire. As I was driving, one of the young men grabbed my shoulder and I removed his hand and drove the car forward a short distance, and began to get out to reason with the crowd, to try to calm them. But the crowd began to throw itself at the car and Anne and I were in danger, and so I drove off, frustrated I couldn't have done more to stop the madness. My guess is they are reflective of the French Revolution mob I read about yesterday that went berserk, killing and maiming people and destroying so much of what was around them.
After returning to bed, at 4 am, I dreamt Anne and I were shopping for a home, looking at neighborhoods and homes in the Redondo, Hermosa, Manhattan Beach sections. Many were not as represented or were overpriced. Finally we came to one that might make sense and had a warm conversation with the people in the home. But it turned out the owners were very senior citizens and not there. But while we were there, they returned and the people we had met with expressed our interest in buying the home and began to describe us. We could hear the senior couple reply and the man was surly and skeptical of us as people although we had never met him. None the less, we were still looking forward to meeting him.
In thinking now of this dream, it reminds me of when Anne and I were looking for so long to buy a home and sellers demanded ever higher prices and unreasonable terms to sell to us. In one case, we reached a deal with a doctor and returned after dinner to finalize that deal in a contract, only to learn he decided his house was worth more money and he demanded tougher terms. It was the one time in real estate, I ever saw soft spoken Anne lose her temper and verbally accost someone. I walked her out to the car, spoke calmly to him, explaining why she was so upset and apologized. He held out for his price and terms and I called our son Kyle to tell him what happened and not to come with the contract. I believe the doctor wound up leasing out the home, unable to sell it at that time at his new higher price.
Anticipating a sharp fall in home prices, we waited out that market and prices have since fallen sharply and continue to fall in what is today a buyer's market. On September 30th, 2010, we bought the beautiful Palos Verdes home we live in now, a home that makes us very happy. But perhaps in my dreams, I'm haunted a bit by the extremes we witnessed in those seller emotionally driven years in the real estate market.
Dick
2 comments:
another way of looking at the dream is seeing everyone and everything as representing a part of you, so the dream can function on more than one level at once.
The "out there" can represent what's inside. I'd ask Mrs. Pearlman why she came to speak with you. It could also be you looking at your own mortality and aging. And even realizing that anger is part of all of us, part of what we integrate.
Suggestion: Give the dreams titles, even simple ones, like "Edith Pearlman." It is another way of working with the dream, and also a better way, I think, for creating your list and being able to refer back to it, especially when you want to see if there are similar threads running through them.
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