strange existential dream

Last night I had a strange dream which is now fading from consciousness like one of those "zen boards," where you paint in water and it evaporates. I was going to journal about the dream but then I figured I might as well share the ramblings with you, in case you're interested in such unconscious matters.

I dreampt about a little girl who had AIDS or something like it (I'm sure this is related to my kitty situation), and she was not supposed to go outside and get near germs like these little black bugs that attached themselves to your skin and made you get sick. Everyone told her to live a sheltered, safer life.

But she didn't want to. She wanted to go out in the world and in the woods and do things and help people. In the dream, I'm not sure if I was her or if I was a close care-giver. Either way, I ended up siding with her and trying to help her do these things despite the admonishes orff her parents and the world. And she was not supposed to eat but certain things, but in one scene she wanted to try grits so I made her some. But I had to make it so, so carefully or she would die. No germs could get in it (yet we were in the woods so it was hard).

Everything she did was a risk, so throughout the dream that risk was hanging over our heads. At first I feared she would indeed die and her parents would hate me for colluding with her. But as the dream went on, I got used to the risk that pervaded everything, and I made this philosophical peace with the idea that "a life lived fully is worth more than a life lived safely." So if she died it would be okay.

And in the end, she remained well somehow (miraculously?), and the danger she placed herself in actually strengthened her immune system. The doctors didn't know why.

Then the dream skipped (and this makes little sense)-- but there was a big sea and a tall, tall tree in the woods. And she decided to plunge into the sea-- to topple this tall tree into the ocean in order to save someone or something. I don't know how it was going to do good, but it was-- she was going to sail somewhere on this log. Maybe there were pirates. It was very Odysseus-esque.

I guess this was an act of martyrdom for the girl, because she was sure to die in this situation given her fragility. But she figured (as did I, since I was part in her consciousness) she had already cheated death and lived a fuller life than she'd been given, so it mattered less if she died. She still would have been blessed.

So she did this act. She climbed to the top of a tall redwood tree and it toppled and plunged into the ocean, sending blue-green waves flying everywhere, and the girl was whisked away.

And the dream continued, with me and my friends playing music and other strange things I can't explain-- like a miniature version of a painting I have on my wall from my Gran's house-- a miniature version of this painting in a photo album alongside Portuguese words-- all of this 3-D and emerging from the album. And then there was a frustration and a confusion: the frets on my guitar disappeared and were replaced with paper drawings of frets, and I couldn't play the song right, and Patrick and Christen (other musicians) were on another balcony, disconnected from me. The song I was going to play (I still remember it!)-- was capoed on the 6th fret and it is a Weepies' song called "The world spins madly on." (Seems appropriate.)

And the dream ends with this girl returning-- miraculously-- months later and soaking wet, with blue wings on her shoulders. Bright blue wings like the color of your blood beneath your skin-- blood without oxygen, but still pulsing.

And then I woke up, feeling this strange sense of existential urgency. I don't know what the dream means, except to take risks. I don't know what it's purpose was, except to imbue me with a sense of life's preciousness and the good kind of mortality salience that propels one onward with a mundane courage. I think we all have this prosaic bravery every day but it's hidden. So I guess this dream, by making death apparent, made our courage in living transparent.

But you psych (and lit, and religion) folks can go ahead and analyze this dream if you wish. I'm open to suggestions of its deeper meaning. The feeling of the thing (which is always the central clue, I think) was one of risk but not fear, and when I awoke the feeling was an existential one (if that makes sense?). It was a fascinating dream because of the constant reality that this girl was going to die, and yet choosing to help her risk things over and over again. (Usually these two feelings don't coexist for long, especially in the black-and-white land of the unconscious)... so it was an intriguing sequence indeed.