Speaking for Sarah

So, last night I had one of those bizarre, macabre, somewhat profound and yet funny dreams. You know the kind. I feel compelled to write about it although it's not the most cheery of tales. And I like to keep the blog relatively cheery.

Anyway. . . .



In the dream, it seemed that I was working in a big office building that was vaguely medical, maybe a hospital. There was a beginning sequence where things seemed normal, almost pleasant. I came to work, I talked to some guy that I didn't really know but who worked in the building and who was kind of flirty or chatty with me and I thought, oh, how nice. Then I had to go outside for some reason and come back in, and then at some point I realized that I was working in a morgue. When I came back into the building, the regular elevator wasn't working, so I got on a little-used elevator that wasn't working very well, in a part of the building I didn't know. There was a guy waiting for the elevator with me, or in it with me waiting for it to start, that part's not clear. He was kind of thin, blond, attractive. While we were waiting for the elevator to start (now it seems like that's what was happening), I noticed the awful smell. I didn't want to think what it was, but it seemed like a very bad smell partly covered up by a sickly sweet air freshener. I was getting upset, trying to cover my mouth and nose, and I think we both left the elevator to look for another elevator. But then we saw it was starting, and got back in.

We got out on some floor or other, and walked a little ways together. When we were going to part, I said something like, "Well, at least I'm better now" (although I still felt very queasy and weak), and I kind of pantomimed that I was just getting my breath back. The guy said, sympathetically, "Yes, you were pretty bad there for awhile." Then we went on our separate ways.

I guess my unconscious really wanted me to know this dream was about death, because there was another part of the dream, also involving an elevator, where I was walking toward the elevator and a security guard or elevator man, in a uniform, was sitting on a stool inside (or outside) of the elevator, and talking to another security guard. The first guy said, "No exhumers today?" and the second one said, "No, we still haven't solved that case" (or maybe it was "those cases").

Okay. Then there was a part, not so interesting, where I was in a cafeteria, trying to get some sugar for my tea, which involved butting ahead of people in line and trying to get the cashier's attention. Somehow the conversation with the cashier, a dark-haired woman, also in a uniform (!), wasn't about the sugar, though--it took on some other weight, or meaning, which I can't remember. But it was definitely problematic, getting the sugar, and meanwhile, I had the tea in a cup with two cups around it and the cups were starting to fall apart and the tea was spilling, so I threw it away. (In real life, I spilled a full cup of tea all over the carpet at work yesterday--obviously this traumatized me enough to dream about it.)

Then the thread about the blond guy in the elevator picked up. I was going up or down the stairs in the building and I saw him at the top of the stairs, in what seemed to be some kind of scrubs--light green (yet again, a uniform of sorts). He seemed to be sweeping the stairs, and that disconcerted me, or made me feel less interested in him, so I was just going to keep going, but he called out to me and said something like, "I remember you, I'm the guy who was in the elevator with you." Then he said his name, and it was some ridiculous name that was supposed to sound Irish, except it made no sense--it was something like O'Throckmorton. His first name might have been Jimmy. Then he went on to explain that he was a lab technician and something else that explained why he was sweeping the steps. And he said that he worked in room something on the ground floor (room 10?) and they called it the boring room, so I should come by anytime to talk.

It was starting to register with me (in the dream) that there seemed to be a lot of men working in this building, and they were so nice and friendly and chatty and seemed interested in me. So then, very much still in the dream, I thought to myself, in what I felt was a clever and ironic way, "Wow, so who knew you had to work at the morgue to meet men."

Another segment involving this same guy: I looked out a window, from the ground floor of the building, and saw a woman approaching, who in the dream was supposed to be someone I knew, a friend. It was daylight. She was trying to tell two guys who were sort of trailing her that no, she didn't need their help. One of them was supposed to be her boyfriend and the other was my guy from the elevator. So then, to claim him, I said, very soberly, unsmilingly, "Jimmy helped me a lot with the smell episode." At the same time, though, I was thinking, "Did he really help me? What did he do, anyway?"

Then the scene shifted and it was nighttime and I was outside the building, trying to get somewhere, but I didn't know the way, I didn't know how either to get home or to find my way back to the building, and I was frightened. I was running, and there were a lot of trees, with big roots across the path, and no light. The woman who was supposed to be my friend, the same one in the previous segment, found me and pulled me back toward the building. I told her I hadn't known the way back and she seemed surprised, a little dismissive. When we got inside, she immediately sat down at a cubicle and was doing all this administrative work, answering people's complaints on the phone, writing things down, making charts. She said, "I'll see you tomorrow." I said, "Oh, what's tomorrow?" She said, "We're playing charades at my house."

Then I left again, it was still dark, and I was running again, but this time I wasn't frightened, I had more of a feeling of freedom and seemed to be gliding above the ground. I was thinking about charades and whether I should ask the guy, Jimmy, to come with me to the party. Then I was thinking about what our charade could be. I felt worried because I hadn't gone to the movies much in the last few years, so what if I couldn't come up with good ideas for, say, a movie title? Then I thought of an old standby, The Sound of Music. I went on then, in the dream, to try to think of how we would pantomime the first word, "sound." I decided I could make rippling motions with my hand to suggest . . . waves. I even pictured people shouting the answer, excitedly. Then I would have to get them from "waves" to "sound waves" so I was going to point at my ear. From there, The Sound of Music would be a no-brainer, I figured.