| Dream: “Missing Legs” | 1993 January 7 |
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Dream 2: “Diseased Tree” I climb a tree in front of someone's house. It is a big tree, very wide at the bottom and very sturdy. As I climb, I find different branches that I think should be removed. I break them off… little ones, mostly. I see others that I'll need to get a saw and come back for. I also need to get some paint or such to seal the end of the broken spots. As I get higher, I find more and more bad ones. One long branch is twisted around a good branch. It has a deflated look. I start to unwrap it. I find there are knots in it. I untie them. I begin to notice there is an inconsistency in the texture and coloration of the tree. The branches where I am now, and especially the damaged ones, have a texture reminiscent of reptiles. Then it starts to look like there is some kind of moss there. But it looks like it's not just a surface manifestation. "Bacterial infection" comes to mind and sticks. I think, "It must be on my hands now. But there’s no use jumping down now. I'll just dowse my hands in alcohol when I'm done up here. (Not the 99% water kind they sell in Rite-Aids, but the 100% alcohol kind we have at work.) Then, when I come back up here, I'll wear gloves." The one long deflated branch is hanging straight down now. I see several large areas I want to come back and use a chain saw to cut off. I call to the man in the yard and ask him for spray paint. He seems annoyed. He says he has none. His wife says he does and gets him to get it. He throws it to me. I climb down. I tell the man the tree is diseased. He gets mad at me. He doesn't believe me. I point to some branches, then I climb back up. I do that thing where I get onto a branch by spinning around it. [I really do that.] I get up to a spot that seems particularly bad. I have my spray paint in hand. I see a large cavity at the base of the branch and a large insect nest inside. (Ants, I think.) [Even after I wake, I keep thinking about how to save this tree. I even went back to sleep to try to continue the Work.]
Dream 3: “Missing Legs” Act 1: [The beginning is lost. It fades in with...] a pool table. I'm setting up a garden-variety trick-shot, but some of the balls are water-balloons. I try to set it up any way. I check to see how the balloons transfer the energy to the balls, to see if they will work the same way. Two of them now seem very large and I'm concerned that they might break, and that even unbroken, the owner might get mad if he sees them on his table. I pick one or two up. It is now very large and awkward. I pick part of it up and three other parts still sit on the table. I finally manage to get it in my arms, and I take it to the rest room and put it in the sink.
Act 2: I look in the mirror above the sink. I see a face I know is mine, but it is different from the face I remember. There is a drained look, paleness, a (psychologically) beaten look, and other differences that I can't identify. The hair is different too, the color, the style. The sight saddened me. Then I caught a glimpse of my old self (a memory?), then the other face again. I thought about the accident... What it took from me... If only it hadn't have happened... How I lost my legs, the right one just below the knee, and the left, mid-thigh. I wonder if the amputations were really necessary and how the damage was done. I take my right cowboy boot off. It is filled with water. I pour it into the sink. My pant leg gets wet. I notice that I'm having no trouble standing, and I wonder why. (Whatever prosthesis there was came off with the boot.) Then I wake!
[About a month later, I bought a pickup truck. The next day, I typed and printed this dream. On the way home, the truck broke down on the way home from work, on 295, just before the exit for Route 130 North. I started to push it, trying to get it to the exit. (The exit is down hill.) Once it gets rolling, I could pop the clutch or just coast to the parking lot at the bottom of the hill. Then I could call AAA to tow it. It had been raining and the road was wet. Since the exit turns to the right and goes down hill, cars turning off the highway would not be able to see me. This could cause an accident, so I get back in and keep trying to free the clutch and start the truck. By the time I started to push again, a cop showed up and put his flashing lights on. I stopped pushing and he called a tow-truck. As I waited in the back of the squad car, he told me, “This is a very dangerous spot. I was at an accident right across the road just this morning. A couple of weeks ago, a guy got killed right here. He and another guy were pushing a car down the ramp and their bodies were blocking the car's taillights from the view of on coming traffic, so no one could see the flashers. A car came along and cut him in half.” By not using AAA, I had to pay for the tow-truck, but as the cop said, “It's not worth losing -your legs over.”.]
Dream 4: “Living Room Renovations” Mom and Dad and I are renewing the house cabinets (one's like in the kitchen were in the living room). We removed them to put in new ones, but there was so much more space in the living room that we decided to just put up paneling and keep the extra space.
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