You Can't get There from Here

I don't dream much.  I kind of like it that way.  Dreams always seem like "work" even while you are sleeping.  Except you have less control over how hard you are working.

I have been off work sick with strep throat for the past 24 hours.  I have slept a lot of that time.  Most of it has felt much less restful and more like processing stuff.  I understand that dreams fade fast, and the details become cloudy very soon after waking.  Because of that and because this dream seemed very much like something I am supposed to process, I am writing it down.

Dream:

I found myself sitting on a bench along the wall of a very wide hallway or passage.  It was probably 20 feet across.  The walls were brick and there were no windows.  As I sat there, I pulled out some papers from my work computer bag.  I had just gotten off a bus, but I know that just as a matter of knowing as I didn't actually see it in the dream.  I was wondering what time my flight was leaving and how I was supposed to get to where it left from.  I was obviously NOT at in an airport.

I was very focused on looking through what seemed to be travel papers or itineraries when a man in an electric wheelchair came down the corridor on my left.  I'm not sure if he was missing both legs or only one.  He was dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt.  He had dark hair and was not dirty but wasn't exactly well-groomed either.

He slowed down in front of me and asked a question that I cannot remember now, but I was really focused on looking through my papers.  I replied, "I don't really know." 

He had come to a stop and said, "Maybe if you took the time to slow down and consider the question, you might discover that you actually know the answer."

I responded that I was really focused on what I was trying to figure out right then and if I could figure out what I needed to know, perhaps I could take a minute to think about his question.

He asked me what I was trying to figure out.  I said that I needed to catch a flight, but didn't know which terminal or even what airline.  I wasn't sure I was actually even at the airport.  He looked at me and said, "well, you can't get there from here."  

"Why not?", I asked.  He proceeded to tell me that this was a bus terminal, and planes fly out of airports.  Then he rolled away shaking his head.  

I took a minute more to look through the rest of my papers before deciding that the information I needed was not there.  I put them away, re-shouldered my backpack and began walking down the hallway to the right (I had come in from the left).

At the end of it, it came to a "T".  To the right, there was an archway that said something like "High school".  There were red lockers and people filling hallway.  I remember noticing that no one on that side crossed under the archway, nor did they even seem to notice that there was a hall beyond the arch.  It was almost as if there was cellophane across the opening.

To my left was another archway that was unmarked.  No one was there.  No people.  No guy in the wheelchair.  No one.  I knew that the high school would not have an airport or what I seemed to be looking for, so I opted to begin walking down the corridor that was unmarked.

I was wondering how I was going to figure out where I was supposed to be if I didn't even know where I was.  I also wondered why I would have trusted anyone else to decide how I should get there since it wasn't their problem to get me where I was supposed to be.

I did know that I couldn't just stay there, so I continued walking.

Then I woke up.

And this is why I would rather not have dreams at all

~ February 15, 2017