Dream: Rescuing the Butterfly Boy

Dream 20020712, 3:30 AM:

Rescuing the Butterfly Boy

I’m in a semi-submersible boat; it has big glass bubbles on the bottom/sides, through which I can see a wide variety of underwater life, like in a reef. The boat tips at an angle to place the side bubbles down into the water. There is another person here with me; he and I take turns being outside the machine, in the water with something like a snorkeling apparatus. I remember that the goggles have a special red light beside the right eye, and it links somehow to the boat, but I don’t know what it does. I remember being in the water, and doing a dance with some yellow Angelfish-like fishes; they swirl around my fins.

Then, we’re taking the craft out of the little cove we were in, and along a rocky beach. There is tall grass, and I am concerned about animals that might be in the tall grass.

Then, I am in a group of people who are seated on and around a patio-like area; it seems like they’re watching a show of some sort, but very informal. I see a large yellow, green, and black butterfly get caught in a spider’s web, and I reach up and pull the web apart so that I have the part with the butterfly in it. I drape the part with the two black spiders across a section of fence; I don’t have any animosity toward them, I just don’t want them to kill the butterfly. The butterfly is really large – like the size of a Birdwing, probably 7 or 8 inches across. It shifts as I’m untangling it, becoming orange with black veining like a monarch, although it still has the large angular wings like a tropical.

Then, a pretty middle-aged woman, black straight hair pulled up, comes up and tells me she’s the butterfly’s mother. Now that he’s gotten caught in the spider web, he’s going to have to go through hatching out again. I look closely at the butterfly, and realize that it has a tiny human head. Then, there is a somewhat confused dream sequence with several repetitions of the butterfly hatching out of a huge chrysalis, sometimes it looks like a moth, sometimes almost like a Caddis-fly, with long dark gray wings held close to a long body. In one of the repetitions, I remember the mother is stroking the butterfly’s wings, straightening them out so that he will be able to inflate them. In that sequence, he looks very much like a silkworm moth, with a thick body and stumpy wings. One of the sequences, there is a dark-haired Spanish-looking man sitting at a table, with his head laid down on the table in front of him; he seems like he’s anesthetized or paralyzed; his eyes are open, but he doesn’t move at all. The woman parts his hair on the back of his neck, and places the butterfly in the part. For some reason that is supposed to help it grow.

The dream shifts phase, and I’m in a car, driving along, looking for a particular car dealership. I’m supposed to meet someone there – it might be Deborah. I am driving out into the country, and I know that it’s a ways outside of town. I see the dealership, but the exit for it is past the place itself. I exit, and drive down a gravel road, then have to get out, open a gate, and make a sharp right turn onto another gravel road, which winds through an area of small juniper trees to get to the dealership. They look like Christmas trees. I finally get to the dealership, and the ground is all covered with snow. I want to play in it, but it is obvious that everyone has left it alone, walking only on the paths, so that the snow will look pretty. There are people here standing in line. I don’t remember seeing any cars. I don’t see who I’m looking for, so I turn to leave. I grab a handful of snow as I go. I am standing, telling a group of people about how I don’t really know what I think about the power system that they (Deborah and Danny?) got – I like the part where it manages the settings at off-peak times, but not sure about the rest of it. I also say something about how I didn’t get to keep the hard drive.