Dreadfully depressing dream in which my house was under construction.
A nasty fight with racial overtones broke out between two completely unreasonable contractors — each of whom blamed me for the presence of “the other.” Naturally each one blamed the other for starting the fight, and of course I had not seen any of it. All I knew is that it was my house, and I was going to be sued by both of these total assholes. The white guy, main contractor and supreme loudmouthed know-it-all who pronounced long and loudly on all subjects, fancied himself in charge of my house (which he called “the job site”), while the black guy (there only to remove and replace a broken dishwasher), had an equally serious attitude problem, had barged in blasting the place with loud rap music, and loudly referred to the white guy as a “cracker!” It became clear that they’d been on a collision course from the moment they met — at my expense and in my house.
Despite my best efforts, there was no reasoning with either one of them, no way to find out what had really happened, and nothing fair about it. Each man seemed capable only of uttering his respective culture’s stereotypical sound bytes (man-in-the-street populist slogans almost shouted from scripts) — and the only probable truth I could discern was that the other guy just didn’t get it.
It was all my fault, of course.
In real life, that’s why we have insurance.
In a dream, a house represents your mind.
Hopefully mine does not consist of two unreasonable and irreconcilable sides, but I guess I’ll never know, because I’m not witness to what goes on in my unconscious.
The dream might as well be a summons.
(I’m incredibly guilty, of course.)
In my dream, the fact that I could see that each one of these guys had a good side only seemed to add to my guilt.
Summoning my unconscious . . .
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3 responses to “Summoning my unconscious . . .”
And this is why I drink heavily before going to sleep…
In my case, drinking might only have made it worse!
The fact that you could see that each of these guys had a good side is in fact your saving grace – you accepted both as fully human. Your sense of being sued may be a sense of having to bear the price each of us as individuals within society must pay for such rank prejudice. In our hyperlitigious society this dehumanization is also frequently encountered in lawsuits.
I’m almost surprised this intense frustration took on a racial form; you’ve expressed it so well here with regards to both race and politics. But then, there have been a lot of issues recently that have had racial aspects.
Was it the Cory Maye trial where the defense attourney referred to some jurors as “crackers”?
I’m not sure which problem will prove the most intractable or damaging in the long run. Maybe your dream in a way is a summons to keep doing what you are doing to combat them.