Date Dreamed: 2014-02-18
Dream
I work at some sort of flower
distribution business. We cut and arrange flowers in a sort of factory anyhow. I’m
walking to work in the morning, and the weather is overcast and somewhat hazy.
There are plenty of other people out walking and we are all converging at the
bridge over the river. I stop at the pedestrian traffic jam formed by this bottleneck and the person in front of me turns around. He starts insisting that
I take out some sort of loan from him. This guy is clearly shady and
it looks like he has some henchman in the crowd. I refuse his persistent
requests and get so uncomfortable that I leave the sidewalk and start walking
away through the grass. It's very muddy and slippery and I have to work just
to keep from falling down. I meet my friend Ryan, who also works at the flower factory.
We walk to work together and spend some time outside cleaning our shoes before
we go inside. When we finally enter we are late for work. A
broadcast system announces that two of the workers who were supposed to be stationed at the gift shop haven’t arrived yet, so that department is understaffed. Ryan
and I understand that the two missing workers are us, and realize that we are
needed in the gift shop. The factory works on some sort of daily work rotation
that is unannounced ahead of time. Before we enter the shop we make two new
flower displays as a sort of excuse for what we were doing and why we are late.
When we walk in the gift shop we find the two women who will be working with us
(because apparently four people are needed to run this place). The gift shop
consists of various fancy displays of flowers and other decorations scattered
around the room on shelves and plinths. The women, one of whom is Alaina, tell
us that nobody has been in yet so it doesn’t really matter that we were late.
Ryan and I add our newly created bouquets to the other displays. Mine is a gift
specifically for the parents of newborn twins. It consists of a tiny leather
couch and some water balloons. The balloons have happy messages written on
them. The big one in the middle say “We Wanted Twins and We Got Twins”, and a
smaller balloon say “Two Wins” (as a sort of pun on the word twins). The shelf
I set the couch on isn’t very stable and the balloons keep rolling off. After
trying to keep the balloons stationary for a while, one of them develops a hole
and starts leaking water. I start to panic and attempt to pinch the hole shut,
but all my efforts just make the problem worse. Since the tiny couch is leather
I’m making a big deal about getting it wet. My fellow workers tell me
just to pop the balloon but I keep insisting that I can’t do that on the
leather couch. The situation is getting increasingly out of hand and now water
is spraying all over the place and not just on the couch. I try to direct the
stream of water into my mouth as a way of containing it, but I only manage to
get myself soaking wet. I pick up the balloon and start running for the
bathroom. The water finally stops flowing right at the entrance to the
bathroom, and I collapse from a combination of frayed nerves and a sense of
defeat. At that moment some customers arrive at the gift shop. The others try
to distract them as I dejectedly drag myself into the bathroom to hide. I hear
the customers make and inquiry about why there is water everywhere and one of
my female coworkers pokes her head into the bathroom to check on me. I’m lying curled up on
the floor, broken and defeated.
Context Explanations
Ryan and Alaina are friends of mine
from high school.
Plot Holes
That was an outrageous amount of water
to be coming out of one balloon.
Erection?
Despondently Yes
Analysis
This dream might seem very downbeat,
but it was actually played with a more comedic tone. It was reminiscent of an I Love Lucy sketch, where a seemingly
small problem steadily escalates to absurd levels. My actions at the end were
a deliberate overstatement of my emotions. Exaggerating my feelings was a way
of getting in on the joke. Less reaction would show that my pride had actually
been hurt, and trying to pretend it was a big deal would be a sign that my self-esteem
needed to be shielded from damage. By playing up the situation I acknowledge
that it was funny, and excepted that my behavior had been humorous if not taken seriously. The part
with the unrelenting usurer was a combination of my fear of confrontation with
strangers and my dislike for being in debt. I think the whole idea of the
flower factory grew from hearing someone say they bought a cooking spice from a
flower shop, and now my understandings of the limits of that business have been
thrown into question.
Auguries
We had mud on shoes and water on a leather couch. This speaks of
something fancy of expensive being dirtied or damaged.
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