Yak: The Interpretation of Dreams

"Swans Reflecting Elephants"
by Salvador Dali

"To sleep, perchance to dream..."

"Alexander's Dream"
by Mati Klarwein

The Interpretation of Dreams
a.k.a.
My (Imaginary) Brush with Fame

        The following dream occurred last night. So for those of you Freudian types out there who like to try and figure out what certain symbologies are supposed to represent, how particular events could be tied to certain fixations and/or tendencies within the dream sequence...well, here's something for you to sink your teeth into. Analyze away!

    This dream that I had involved a famous celebrity. I won't bother mentioning her name since because this is just a dream, then I see no sense of associating her with something that never happened.
    In any case, the entire episode started off with me attending church. It was the middle of a service and I sitting towards one of the back pews when all of a sudden someone approached me from behind and covered my eyes with both of his hands while at the same time chuckling loudly to himself. Now, one would think that based on this behavior the person behind me was a close friend of mine, perhaps someone whom I haven't met in a long time. Surprisingly enough, when I had a chance to turn around I found out that it was just some acquaintance, a guy who I really barely knew, and in fact I even had a bit of difficulty remembering his name for brief second or two.
    Be that as it may, I greeted him and at which point he proceeded to converse with me quite loudly and obnoxiously (especially considering we were in the middle of a church service). Now all during this time, his girlfriend, the famous celebrity, had sidled up next to me, to my left, and was listening in politely to our conversation. After a while she leaned over and gave me a light buss on the cheek.
    So naturally I turned towards her, wondering what was going on and at which point she proceeded to converse with me as well -- albeit, at much lower decibels compared to that of her loud boyfriend.
    We were never really formally introduced to each other. I certainly knew who she was, while she on the other hand apparently walks around with the impression that her fame was universal, so she herself feels no need to introduce herself.
    In any case, the flow of conversation gradually shifted until it reached a point where the verbal give and take was just exclusively limited to just between me and her, with the boyfriend having wandered off to another part of the church, perhaps to hang out and chat with some other person that he may come across and recognize.
    I continued chatting with his celebrity girlfriend right up to the end of the service, at which point we exited the structure and started to walk by the side of a courtyard, which was right outside the church.
    Now at this point it was revealed in the dream that the church was actually located in the middle of a prison, and that there were even some "model" prisoners (some of the more respectable and presentable-looking ones) included in the service among the church-going public thrown in by the prison authorities as an implicit way of showing to one and all how well things are going within the prison grounds. But now that the service was over and most all of the parishoners have left the premises to head on home or run some errands or somesuch, then everything has returned to "business as usual" once again so now you can see a group of maybe two dozen of the more hard-core criminals that are walking double file, being led by a handful of prison guards in the middle of the courtyard towards some unseen destination at the other end of the yard.
    In the dream I remembered feeling a bit concerned at being in the presence of all of these hulking, tatooed, scary-looking characters. But my companion who was still chatting away didn't seem the least bit worried.
    We kept walking until we reached one corner of the courtyard which she then proceeded to turn into. There was a bit of a depression on the ground, which turned into a gradual slope as you kept going:

    At this point, I was starting to wonder that perhaps maybe it's better if we get back to where her boyfriend was, given that we've been gone for some time now without even telling him where we are and there we are now just by ourselves in a fairly secluded area. When I mentioned this to her out loud she simply ignored what I said and just kept on walking and all the while conversing at the same time. We followed the trail until it ended in front of a massive, old, decrepit structure that looks somewhat like a barn, with the decaying and rusted sides made out of corrugated sheet metal. The main entrance itself was just a set of regular-sized double doors that were padlocked.
    She stopped talking just briefly enough to produce a key from her purse at which point she proceeded to unlock the door and went inside. With a sense of dread, I followed while commenting, "How do you even know about this place?!"
    The interior looked even more intimidating; every single inch was filled with graffitti -- the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the door that we came from as well as the other one across the room to which we were headed. It looked just like the place where all sorts of dark deeds tend to happen at all times.
    But as mentioned, none of what was going on seemed out of place to my companion who seemed quite at home in her surroundings as she continued making small talk until we reached the door at the far end of the room.
    It turned out we're in some sort of a maze; as soon as you enter a room, just as grungy and dingy and dirty as the previous one, you see yet another door at the far end of this room, at which point we kept on going.
    After going through a few of these rooms we finally reached a door that led to a garage area where a car happened to be parked. She has a female driver in her employ who was dutifully waiting for her behind the wheel. All three of us are of approximately the same age. Before getting in the car my companion took off her sweater and pinned it against the door as she closed it shut, so that a portion of the material can be seen wedged and dangling from the door edges from either the inside of the room or the side of the door facing the garage.
    The problem was that she did this when I was still inside the room while she was already in the garage area about ready to get in the car! And so as I attempted to follow her through the doorway, of course her sweater fell to the ground as I opened the door once again. I hastily tried to re-set the wool material back the way she had it, and had a bit of a difficulty doing so (because apparently you had to do so a certain way otherwise the sweater will just keep falling to the door). After numerous efforts I finally managed to wedge it in properly and then ran up to the vehicle to get in as well.
    It was at this point that I realized that the vehicle was a station wagon. There was a surfboard lying flat in the back portion of the car taking up the entire space of the rear, and she was lying on her back on top of it. I hesitated for a few seconds while taking in this entire scene in front of me and then finally asked, "Should I go in there with you?" I wasn't quite sure if she wanted me to lie down next to her.
    She thought about it for a while and then eventually sat upright and tapped the back portion of the headrest of the front passenger seat, "No, sit here for safety's sake," meaning that I could buckle in my seatbelt as we drove away if I were sitting in the front seat, so it'd be much safer for me.
    So I shut the passenger door and ran around to the other side of the vehicle and got in the front seat as she instructed, saying hello to our driver as I got in.
    She (the driver) looked at me in acknowledgement but didn't respond. In fact, throughout the entire dream (which for the purposes of this storyline occured during a span of about 10 days!) she never said a single word at all. She always had a kind face and was never hostile towards me, but her eyes always had that jaded, cynical look whenever they stared at me that practically says, "Look, I've been along for these 'escapades' of hers more times than you can ever have imagined. You're not the first guy that she's brought along, and you're certainly not going to be the last. In fact, you're just one among the multitude of nameless, faceless guys that she'll be going through before all is said and done. And when the dust clears in this particular case with you, she won't even remember who you are nor will she care. So let's just dispense with the courtesies."

Yeah, that was certainly quite a mouthful, but those were what her eyes said!

    At this point I was really concerned for my well being. Her boyfriend still doesn't know what's going on or where we are and I fear that if he ever finds out I've been skulking around with his girlfriend and ends up catching up to us -- even though we haven't really done anything wrong, mind you -- I just know that I've got some well-placed beatings waiting for me at the business end of his fists.
    I may have even reiterated my wish to let her boyfriend know about our transitory whereabouts since the vehicle was now headed off on its way to...wherever it's going. Apparently our driver already knows where to go, since she just started to drive off as if on cue without any further instructions from her employer who was still situated in the rear of the vehicle.
    In any case, my request was not heeded and it was during this point that I realized all is not well in the relationship between her and her boyfriend. The conversations she was having and the fact that I was in her company was her way of using me as a sounding board to talk about her problems with him -- but not in so many words. She never really went right out and said anything about what kind of problems they were going through, but reading between the lines of what she was trying to say, you get a clear picture of a relationship in trouble and that at this point she simply needed companionship and understanding.
    After a while I finally found out our ultimate destination: Colorado! We were on a long, leisurely-paced road trip along hundreds of miles of the nations highways to reach what I assumme would be her place situated somewhere along the Rockies. And all throughout the entire trip our activities remained fairly much the same: she would talk to me about what was going on in her life. As always, our driver was her usual, quiet, enigmatic self. Never once did she ever join in on any of the conversations during those few times when she was even around us -- she usually kept a respectable distance away from the two of us whenever we're in one of our numerous and frequent rest stops along the way.
    We always stayed overnight along various hotels and motels and inns whenever it was time to conclude the drive at the end of the day. The very first time we did this I offered to sleep on the floor but my celebrity companion said something along the lines of, "Don't be silly" at which point I shared the beds with her and her driver the rest of the trip. Speaking of which, our relationship was completely platonic the entire time.
    As we reached about three quarters of the way to our destination I realized that some major changes were taking place; she had been steadily talking on her cell phone more and more often during the past few days -- always to her boyfriend -- and today as we were getting ready to head off on the next leg of our trip I realized that she never said a single word to me all day much less even glance once in my direction, as if for all intents and purposes I don't even exist in her world anymore as far as she's concerned. Gathering bits and pieces of her side of the phone conversation, it looks like things are back to normal once again between her and her boyfriend and they are now eagerly making plans about what they intend to do once they get to see each other again.
    Realizing that I had pretty much served my purpose, I walked over to our driver who was sitting quietly off the side a few feet away from us. I told her that if her boss ever asks where I went or was wondering whatever happened to me, or why I disappeared all of a sudden, that to please tell her that I went home.
    The driver looked up at me and gave the most imperceptible of smiles, as if to say, "No, she won't."
    At that point, I flagged a cab to the nearest airport and took the next available flight back home.

-- The End --