Dream: Forgetting my Jeans
Dream 20030815, 7:00 AM:
I’m in a high school classroom, sitting toward the back, near a big cabinet. The male teacher pulls me aside, back to where the cabinet is, and I sort of sit next to the cabinet. I take the ear-plugs out of my ears to listen to him. (I wear ear-plugs only to sleep; this is a sure dream-sign, but I missed it.) He asks if I’m feeling a little uncomfortable or embarrassed; I look down and realize that I’m not wearing any pants. I have on a shirt, and ordinary white underwear, but no jeans. I feel more annoyed than anything – frustrated with myself for forgetting that stage in my morning, but not embarrassed or very upset.
I walk down to the office, to get some sort of excuse to go home. I walk in and start talking to a woman who is apparently the nurse; she reminds me of the lady lawyer on some TV show, with long hair and a pretty round face. We talk for a little bit, and I’m explaining to her that I sometimes have bouts of explosive diarrhea (which term seems to make a significant impact on her) and that I must have forgotten to put my pants back on after I went to the bathroom. She nods sympathetically. Several other women come into the room, and I have to tell the story again. They are hanging out, as if it’s break hour at the teacher’s lounge. I keep having to remember to take the ear-plugs out of my ears.
I walk out into the little reception area of the offices, and there on a coffee table are my jeans laid out; I pick them up, with a sort of “There you are, where have you been?” feeling, and put them on. I tell everyone that I’ve found them. I still want to go home, though. I walk down the hallway with a pass in my hand, a white slip of paper with a tick-box checked off with green high-liter marker.
Outside, I pick up a cart to carry my stuff to my car. I get out to the car, which seems a long way from the door, and then I tell the cart to go back… it seems like a dog, or a horse now. I make some sort of motion with my hand, which magically sends it off. I put my things in the car, and get in. *end*
“Please excuse Kenny from school today, he has explosive diarrhea. Thank you.”
Rx: seat belt on your toilet
Unfortunately, it’s one of the symptoms of the genetic food intolerance I’ve been blessed with: celiac disease. Didn’t manifest during high school, but it was a constant problem for a couple of years recently until I found out what was going wrong and changed my diet to avoid the foods I can’t have.
Now, I’m fine, don’t have that problem unless I make a mistake and eat something I shouldn’t… but it still haunts my subconscious from time to time.
My first thoughts are: What are you not listening or paying attention to? It’s something you have already learned but are choosing not to be aware of right now. Whatever it is, it has the potential to be either embarassing or make you feel vulnerable.
Strange thing…
Usually in dreams that feature me being naked or compromised in public, I have a strong sense of feeling embarrassed, socially uncomfortable, or vulnerable. This time, my feeling is of kind of absent-minded annoyance – throughout the dream, I didn’t feel very upset at all. No covering myself with folders, or ducking behind a convenient door. But at the same time, I felt almost like I was lying, concocting a story for people about how I lost my pants, when I really didn’t have any idea.
Some of this, I think, relates to the fact that I’m disorganized with papers and such. I spent a lot of time yesterday digging through my desk for something, to find that someone else had picked it up and moved it from where I put it. But my first thought was, “Oh, I’ve lost something again.”
The ear plugs are an odd mixed signal – I’m not sure if they represent ‘not-listening’ in the context of the dream, or if they simply represent the fact that as I was lying there asleep, I had earplugs in. I guess the two aren’t mutually exclusive. I usually use earplugs during the last part of the night, so that Christopher can wake up and do his morning ablutions without waking me. Sometimes, reminders of my sleeping body’s actual state, are dreamsigns that (if/when I catch them) can help me become lucid.
Thanks for offering your comments – it always helps me to have perspectives on dreamwork!
Re: Strange thing…
It’s interesting that you were looking for something that someone else put away but blamed yourself first. Have you taken the blame for other people in the past and covered up for them? I think the school setting symbolizes old lessons. I’m going with the earplugs meaning not listening, though, because they played a strong part in your dream what with you taking them out, etc. They were too important to the dream symbolism for your mind to let you use them to go lucid, I think. 😀