Dream: Reeling Silk at the College Orientation

[note: This is something I’ve been looking forward to, silk showing up in my dreams! I haven’t really incubated silk dreams, but anything that I work with this much is bound to make an appearance. ]

Dream 20040401, 3:45 AM:
I’m in a huge cafeteria; it reminds me of one from middle school, with the huge boxy room and the fold-down tables with the little round plastic seats. I am sitting with Mom and I think Dad as well; we’re at some kind of orientation for college. We have our trays, and I get up to go visit someone while they stay there and eat.

I go and sit next to a woman and talk with her and her friends. Across the table from her is this really cute guy; I think it’s somebody I’m dating, or want to date. The woman isn’t eating her applesauce, and I ask if she’s going to, offering to trade her some of my burrito for it. She says that I can have some, and passes it over; it’s one of the kind with the peel-off foil top, and I sit and eat it while we all talk. I realize that I’ve eaten almost all of the applesauce, and she says that she wouldn’t mind a bit of burrito. I go back over to the table where Mom and Dad are sitting. I get my tray and sit down. The tray has something covered with sesame seeds, and a tiny burrito – it looks like a flauta, not much bigger than my finger. I take my spoon and cut the burrito in half, so that I can take half back to the woman. I put the other half into my mouth, it’s just one bite. I realize that I’m not sure whether it’s a corn shell or a flour one, and I couldn’t eat the flour [real life note: I’m gluten intolerant, can’t eat anything with wheat or several other grains, or I get sick]. I carefully spit the bite back into my spoon, and wipe my mouth out with a napkin. I feel kind of icky, like I wish I could wash my mouth out. Mom says something about meeting the guy I’m talking about, and so we all get up and go over toward where they are sitting.

Somehow that gets derailed, or maybe the dream just shifts scenes, because I don’t remember getting to their table, or making introductions, or anything. I walk along, and find myself sitting down kind of at the edge of the room. I decide that I’m going to reel some silk while I’m waiting for whatever’s supposed to happen next. I take out my reel, and a little cannister that has fresh cocoons. The cannister is sealed with a metal lid that I have to punch inward with my thumb to open; when I open it up, several threads pop out. They are thick, and look more like strings of conjoined beads than like a thread. I pull one of them out, knowing that I need to just start with one from this bunch. I decide to add in some cocoons that I had used in a previous reeling, and pick those up. They are tangled together with a little waste silk, and I pull them apart. They are stained with a rusty color from the reeling water. I start sorting them out, and one of them has so much flossing and such on the outside that I have to peel it like an orange; after I do, the end is quite clearly visible, attached between the cocoon in my left hand and the peeled-off layer in my right. The cocoon seems to become bigger during this process – it starts out the real size, but ends up nearly as big as a football. The silvery glistening thread looks as thick and clear as fishing line, but very supple. The whole cocoon is more the color of Tussah silk now, but darker, an almost greenish-brown shade.

A man walks by, and is talking about Hattie and her admissions process. It seems like he’s talking to someone else and I’m not meant to overhear it. I’m torn, thinking that I ought to tell Hattie what he’s said, but at the same time not sure if that would cause problems.