Dream: The Tiny, Tiny Baby

Dream 20030414, 9:00

I am in a house that I think is the Kingwood house, although it’s a little different and not entirely clear who lives here. I am in the bedroom taking a nap. When I wake up, I go into the other room, I think it’s Mom and Dad’s room, and there in a big box with some other stuff (like towels, and some other things I don’t remember) is a tiny, tiny baby. It is fully developed, but only about half an inch long from head to toe. It is wiggling gently, obviously alive. I don’t remember whether it is a boy or a girl.

I think this is my brother Richard’s baby. I’m vaguely annoyed that he’s left it here alone; it is clearly far too small and helpless to take care of itself, and I don’t know how to take care of it properly. I pick it up gently, holding it in the palm of my hand. I start to walk toward the kitchen, but drop the baby on the carpet. Fortunately, because it is so light, it isn’t harmed; I reach down and pick it up again, and continue on toward the kitchen.

I am looking for Speck, the dog – I remember something about how they were having the dog nurse the baby, because she had just had puppies. I find her, and look down and she’s just licked up something off the floor and eaten it – it looks like a worm or a piece of giblet from a chicken or something. I am momentarily frightened that I might have dropped the baby and she’s biting it, but I hold her mouth and look, and realize that it’s just something from the floor, and I’ve still got the baby in my hand. Her mouth seems really long, it reminds me of a crocodile’s. I get her to lie down, and attach the baby onto one of her tiny teats. She lies quietly and allows it to nurse. she doesn’t look like she’s in milk, but the baby seems happy, so I let it be.

Mom and some other poeple (who, I don’t recall) get home. Mom sees the baby nursing, and I tell her that I wasn’t very happy to wake up and find it in the box in the bedroom. She takes the baby off the dog’s teat, explaining that they don’t have the dog nurse it any more. I wonder to myself if they have bottles with tiny nipples. It would have to be smaller than the size of a pencil point.

I am not feeling well, I think it’s just a headache, or maybe sinus pain. I tell Mom that I need to get some medicine, and she is standing next to a big cooler full of different kinds of medicine. The only problem is, that the cooler is also full of water and ice – I can barely see what is down in the bottom. I see something that I think will work, and I roll up my sleeve and reach in for it, bracing as the cold water chills my arm. I grab hold of a pill bottle and pull it up, but when she sees it, Mom explains that I can’t have that, it’s one of Dad’s special medicines from when he had the chemo. I repeat the search, again getting something I can’t take. I give up on it.

There is more to the dream, but that’s all I can remember. I didn’t get a chance to write this down immediately when it happened, so the end portion got lost.