I had this dream yesterday morning, before the neighborhood tea. When I awoke, I thought the dream was telling me to slow down and prepare better before launching my upgraded persona onto my old, unsuspecting community. Therefore, during my main conversation at the party, I was feeling unsettled and vulnerable–okay, paranoid.

REPAINTING A PUBLIC ROOM

 I am preparing to repaint one wall of a large multi-purpose room currently filled with rows of folding chairs for some lecture. It is rectangular, with a small stage at the front end and a wall of windows at the back. There is a clothesline roped along the top of three walls in a scalloped line, near the ceiling, with student artwork clipped all along. The room is carpeted (darkish blue). The front and both long walls are covered with a lovely multi-blues-dotted wallpaper—that matches my waking life’s bed sheets! (I noticed that IN the dream.)

My bed sheet, which is very like the wallpaper in the dream. The wallpaper had more blues and less black, though.

 While I am standing midway back on the left side of the room, getting ready and thinking of which wall to paint with this lovely, bright, sky-blue paint, a teacher-friend named Barb arrives and offers to help me. Oh cool, she is so energetic and cheerful, the job will go faster, easier, and be fun. I hand her the can of paint, and before I know what’s happening, she has RUN across the room, splashed lots of paint willy-nilly across the far wall, splattering the student art and carpet liberally, and then running to the front wall and doing the same.

 I am horrified! We had not taken down the artwork or put tarps over the carpet. Those poor students—their prize artwork is ruined! The administration is going to be furious about the ruined carpet! Oh no—suddenly, all the seats are full of an attentive audience, facing the still-empty podium.

 Barb bounces over to the third wall, where I still am, and I grab her, whispering furiously about what the heck is she doing!?!

I wake up mid-rant, feeling beside myself.

Exactly! In the dream, “I” am the “old” me from Fairbanks a couple of years ago. Barb personifies the me I hope to launch this fall, just jumping in and going public with two classes at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), our university’s program for and by “seniors” over age 50. Neophyte-me, in waking life, has already proposed leading a numerology/tarot class and a dream group in the fall!

So, my first reaction to this dream when I woke up was to think it warned me to calm down and think things through before taking a leap of faith. But after looking up symbols and references in Betty Bethards’ The Dream Book, I realize that the dream actually was advising me, on the contrary, to become like Barb and pursue my dreams with joy and gusto. Many people were waiting for my speech! (Gulp!)

What clinched the interpretation for me was the one tarot card I pulled for advisory commentary. I used Osho’s Zen Tarot deck, and I selected the 7 of Water (Cups), “Projections.” Oh dear, all that rejection from others that I am dreading is really just my projection of my own fears onto others. I am not admitting to, much less taking responsibility for, my own perceptions! Oops. I am not as accepting of my new, improved identity as I thought!