Depression doesn’t just go away

I’m almost ok.

My job is ok – except that I worried all Thursday about making a mistake clocking in and Friday I worried over wasted time that wasn’t even my fault. I worried over whether my supervisor was annoyed with me, when he probably wasn’t. I have enough money for rent and gasoline, but not much else. I sold plasma today, and my arm hurts now. My dog has medical issues, and I can’t afford a vet. I cried several times last weekend because I missed my old friend who made me homeless. I’m angry that my life has been difficult. I’m sad that it isn’t much better already.

I don’t want to complain. I want to explain.

I isolate myself, then feel alone. I want more, then feel like I have less. I’m glad that I have a roof over my head, a comfortable bed, that my car runs, that I have food to eat,…but I’m still not happy. I’m still depressed.

Depression doesn’t go away when things get a little better.

I’ve been trying to focus on buying what I need, rather than what I want, but I still bought a few books and fast food. I don’t want to feel guilty about that. I want to be able to treat myself to a few treats. I want to be kind to myself, because it hurts too much when I’m mean to myself. The world is hard enough without me telling myself that I don’t deserve little treats, that nobody likes me, that I’ll never be happy, or that I’m a failure at my life.

I shouldn’t keep thinking that I wish I’d been able to kill myself when I had a chance, that my mother had aborted me, or my father had killed her when she was pregnant with me. I should keep thinking that I’m here for a reason, and I wasn’t able to kill myself because I still need to fulfill that reason.

I need to believe that my life will get better, not keep thinking that maybe it will only get worse again. I need to be happy that I have a job I don’t hate, rather than fret over how this company hires 70% temps so they don’t have to keep them for more than a year and never have to pay them decent benefits. Let the glass be half full, instead of half empty, and don’t worry that the water might be poisoned.

Enjoy the rose, without worrying about the scratch of the thorns.

 

Update – Short and Boring

I got the part-time, minimum wage phone bank job to help me get through until the production technician job comes through. Then I talked with my landlady on the phone. She understands that I’ll have some money pretty soon, so she’s fine with waiting until Nov. 16th, assuming that’s when I get my first paycheck for my current part-time minimum wage job.

Some of the pressure is off now for a couple weeks, but I still don’t feel safe and secure. I’m trying to keep control of my emotions. My tarot readings for myself are kind of all over the place, sometimes scaring me, sometimes reassuring me, & not as helpful as I’d like.

Running Out of Time?

I expect my landlady may show up tomorrow and try to hand me a 3 day notice. She sent a copy of one to my roommate to give me today, but if it’s dated for tomorrow, that’s probably not legal. I didn’t respond to her text notice last night, and I don’t think sending a text like that is legally binding anyway.

I  filled out online forms for my new job today, the one that doesn’t start until November 28. I also talked to a hiring manager who’s interested in hiring me for my old job at the company that’s now under new ownership. That would be closer and probably easier, if my old supervisor wouldn’t stop them from rehiring me.

Almost all the tarot readings I’ve done for myself or that others have done for me say everything’s going to be fine, Success is either here or right on the horizon, but I still need money that I don’t have. One guy did one reading for me with the 5 of Pentacles (Poverty and Suffering) in the future, but that card was pretty much the exception from the rest of the reading.

My roommate wants me to talk to our landlady and explain to her that I’m about to get a job and rent money. I feel like I want to hide from her until I have the money to hand to her.

The job in Vacaville scares me, mostly because the company is so strict, but also because the long drive might be hard on my car and the long hours might be hard on me.

Taking my old job seems easier, but every time I dreamt of going back there to work as a temp, the same management problems from before were still a problem. In my dreams, I always leave thinking I don’t have to work there anymore and it’s not my fault that they’re still so messed up. In “real life” people seem to be leaving that company like rats leaving a sinking ship, so I don’t think that’s actually a secure job either.

I wish I could get something NOW, to start Monday or sooner, so I can pay my rent and other expenses that will hit next week.

I sold plasma this morning and put $20 of that $25 into gas money. New California gas taxes hit tomorrow, so I wanted to fill up my tank today. I can get another $30 for selling more plasma on Friday or Saturday, but I can’t continually give twice a week, because my blood protein levels would drop too low.

Can’t Sleep – too much worrying

I have an interview tomorrow, but I can’t sleep because I keep thinking that even if I get a job now, I won’t have money to buy gas to drive to work.

One solution might be a part time call-center job, if I can still get that.

I’m also upset about my landlady coming back on Wednesday – though my roommate warned her not to bring her boyfriend’s dog because hers has contagious kennel cough. Maybe this will deter her a few days? She wants to clean out her bedroom here, so she can rent it to my roommate’s friend.

I was trying to sleep with the radio playing, but then dreamt of being in the house I grew up in. There were 3 small white puppies that should have been together in one place, but each was in a different place and none were being fed properly. One is in my Mom’s bathroom. One is out in the kitchen. One is in the middle bathroom. I talk to the one in the middle bathroom & ask him how many times I’ve fed him since he’s been here. He says twice. I think this isn’t even once a day, so he must be starving. He and the others are all so quiet & not complaining. I worry that I’m slowly starving them by not taking proper care of them.

Note: When I dream of trying to protect and take care of baby animals, I think this refers to a part of myself that isn’t getting adequate care and protection.

I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and took a bath. I don’t want to be the crazy roommate who takes baths at 2:30 am. I want to be employed in a good-paying, full-time job that I actually like and am capable of keeping.

 

Anxiety go away – pretty please with sprinkles

I’ve spent a couple hours tonight wondering how to post an update while also getting distracted on Facebook. Maybe getting distracted was a good thing, because my anxiety did go down.

I want to explain how I’ve been feeling, but I don’t want my negativity to draw more negativity. Maybe a picture can be a kind of spell, so I picked this shiny gold spiral for my illustration – rather than one about how worried and anxious I’m feeling.

My interview this morning went fine. I have another tomorrow that I hope will go fine too.

On the opposite side, not having rent money is making me sick to my stomach with anxiety and dread. My landlady is supposed to come back on Wednesday. If I still don’t have money, I’ll want to run away and hide again. When I’m this upset, it’s hard to put in more job applications. I’m mostly focused on managing my emotions and not sliding into catastrophic thinking that could make me go suicidal. (I don’t have the means or will to do it anyway, but the thoughts alone are bad for me.)

Today I started worrying, what if I get this job an hour out of town and don’t have money for gas to drive there? What if I lose my home and have to live out of my car? I said I wanted the swing shift and would take the day shift as my second choice, but if I have to live out of my car because I don’t have a house to live in or money for gas, I thought maybe I could work the night shift and sleep in my car during the day? It’s safer to sleep in a car during the day than at night. It’s easier to find a safe place to park during the day, when cops or private security won’t chase you away. If I have to sleep in my car though, I won’t be able to take a shower and change my clothes easily, and my dog will have no place to live.

I want people who read this to understand how this anxiety feels, but I think my friends and family get annoyed with this kind of post. Last night I started freaking out that I wasn’t prepared for the interview questions this morning. ( I managed to read the 5 most important ones before the interview, so I was ready for them.) Last night I worried that my interview blouse should be blue instead of grey. ( I looked for a better blouse in a thrift store and discount store this afternoon, but none was better than the one I already have.) If I didn’t have this lack of rent money problem right now, I would not be freaking out like this, but lately this is making me kind of crazy.

I can cast all kinds of money spells – fast money, happy money, easy money spells – but they can’t work without a means for them to work. I’m not inclined to beg from strangers on a corner or to write bad checks or otherwise try to steal money. I sold some plasma today, but that was only worth $ 25, not the $ 300 I need. I want to earn my money, but even when I do get a new job, the money won’t come fast enough to pay my rent and phone/internet bill.

Money, money come to me.
As I say, so mote it be.

Worry and Faith

I’ve been seriously putting out applications for the last couple of months. I’ve gone to a few job interviews – two last week, none this week. Every tarot reading I’ve read for myself, the one reading I had at the Pagan Pride Festival last weekend, and the 4 online readings I did this evening have all been positive and clearly show success. Even so, I keep worrying that I might not have a new job by the time rent is due on the 1st of October.

The picture above is of the online reading I just did with Soul Collage cards. It also fits with all the other readings I’ve had lately.

The Fool relates to the Fool card in Tarot, which means, in part, being able to make a leap of faith at the beginning of one’s journey. The Great Mother relates to the reading I had this weekend, which said I need to work with my feminine divine and believe in myself more. My Inner Worrier relates to me worrying and not trusting that everything will work out ok. The Vision chakra card relates to inner vision, intuition and psychic abilities, as well as foresight and clear vision in general.

Fear Demon & Fake City (dream)

(Picture of “City Inside Out”, a Second Life art installation by Haveit Neox, picture by Maddy Gynoid, at Echt Virtuell)

In a dream I had early this morning, I go into a building that has convention rooms toward the back. I see the words “Pagan Pride” over a pair of doors and want to go there, because I want to go to a Pagan Pride Festival this weekend in physical reality. Instead of heading straight for those doors however, I go to the left and into another room with a buffet in it. I want to eat some of the food here, but then think I’m getting distracted from going to the Pagan Pride Festival. I go back to look for that room, but now I can’t find it.

I go outside of this building and look around. The area and building reminds me of some old department store, maybe Montgomery Ward?, that isn’t in physical reality anymore.

I go back inside and meet a character who looks at first like a normal human man, but which I think feels demonic, the kind of spirit I call a fear demon. [I think this is a spirit which can appear in dreams and create nightmares, so it can feed off a person’s fear.] At one point it looks like a child swinging on a swing, but I don’t trust it. It seems to be playing the role of a ghost child, trying to get me or other people in the dream to feel sorry for it, so it can lead us into a scary place where it has more control. Other people in the dream don’t see that it’s manipulative and evil.

When I’m not tricked by the child character, it changes into a medium sized black dog. I’m attracted to the dog at first and try to talk to it, but I feel a malevolence within it, like it’s not a real dog. I move away from it.

A scruffy white dog appears. I’m attracted to it at first and want to help it. When I look more closely at it though, I realize it’s the same black dog, which is really a demon. I say something like, “You can’t fool me. I know you’re the same black dog.” Now it changes back into the black dog and snarls menacingly at me. I turn away from it and go outside again.

Now the world outside looks like part of a city, but in a kind of circular, bowl-like shape. The colors are mostly dark brown, beige, rust and grey – like dirt and decay. It’s neither day or night, but more of a twilight with city lights. I fly up to the top of a building near me and see its flat roof is covered with boxes and debris. I land here and look around. This is when I think this space seems circular and artificial, like a bowl with buildings making up the circumference, almost like mountains. The sky and colors beyond are mostly brown and rust-colored. The building I’m standing on is light grey concrete.

I feel kind of trapped in this environment, like the demon wants me here, but I’m also lucid and in control of myself, so I’m not scared. I know it can’t really hurt me. I fly around this building and look for a higher one, from which to get a better view.  I find one, fly to the top and land. From here I can see the top of the previous building, which is in the center of this bowl-like cityscape. I’m able to see that this is all a construction, almost like a dark city sim in Second Life, except the border is circular instead of square. I know the demon can’t manipulate me from this spot.

At this point the city dissolves around me and I wake, around 6 am.

Notes & Interpretation:

I was awake and online around 4 am before I had this dream. I had just read a blog post about a dream in which Papa Legba appeared with some dogs and read that he’s associated with dogs much like Hecate is. Just before I fell asleep, I saw in my mind a some brightly colored symbols on a black background, a mostly black, medium sized dog apparently dead in a trash can, then the same dog alive and well.  This dog seemed to symbolize a possible deity or spirit guide.

I believe there are demonic spirits which can feed on human emotions and energy. From personal subjective experience in dreams, I think some specialize in giving people nightmares, so they can feed on fear, but they can feed on a person’s fear (or other strong emotions) in waking life too. When I dream of these kind of spirits, they try to manipulate my dream so I’ll be scared, but since I tend to become lucid when I’m scared, I can usually outmaneuver them and wake myself up.

I’ve been feeling some anxiety over needing a job and money lately, so a fear demon might have thought I was vulnerable last night. Even though I’ve had some periods of anxiety, though, I’ve also felt more confident and magically empowered than I have in a long time. I find it interesting that this apparent demon tried different forms to try to trick me, but I was able to see though all of them. Then it seemed to get annoyed with me for seeing though it’s disguises, so it tried to trap me in a dream environment it constructed. Maybe the decaying city was supposed to make me feel homeless and lost, but I instead viewed it as a kind of virtual reality construct, almost like a constructed dream environment in the movie Inception. I didn’t worry about not being able to move into a different environment, because I was fascinated with how this one was designed. I don’t think this bowl-shape is one I would have invented myself. Though it does remind me of Hell in Dante’s Inferno or the underground labs in Westworld, in the dream it reminded me most of a man-made sim in Second Life, which means it would be fake and harmless.

I read probably in a blog recently that Fear is an illusion, and that our higher self tries to show us this by exposing us to the things we fear. It’s basically trying to say, “See that wasn’t so bad, was it?”, but it doesn’t think *anything* is really that bad, so it can expose us to some really horrible situations by normal standards. I mention this idea, because maybe the whole “fear demon” idea is a construct that my subconscious uses to make me feel less fearful in waking life reality?  (I still think these are real external entities, though.)

When I picked out the picture at the top of this post, I had the idea that it probably annoys that demon. Instead of being an image that seems scary to me, it’s of an art installation that I loved in SL. I contributed a short piece of writing to it, which was about a homeless woman in my old neighborhood. Also, instead of making me feel vulnerable to being homeless myself, it reminds me of the drive to help others who are vulnerable and of the power of art and writing to empower us to improve our world.

I’m still feeling big mood swings lately though, the product of stress and money worries. I was thinking today that when I feel anxiety, it feels like something is pulling at my soul as if it were taffy.

Overcoming Obstacles

This last week has been rough. I put out resumes online, went to an interview that had really hard chemistry questions for a lab with horrible reviews from previous employees, blew out my tire on the way home, had to get a ride to my bank so I could get my car repaired, let my landlady cheat me out of $ 100, sold my plasma for $ 45, got 2 decent used tires for $ 70, had the mechanic remove my front bumper so I can still drive, dealt with demanding dogs during 100+ degree heat, and cleaned up after my dog pooping on the living room carpet at 3 am last night.

Meanwhile, being sensitive to subtle energies and other peoples emotions means I have to sort out whether what I’m feeling is purely my own emotion, the emotions of people around me, some kind of precognition warning of “doom”, or a trick of my mind and brain chemistry. I had ugly feelings last night as I was writing my blog and early this morning when I first woke up. I stayed up late to finish my last blog post, then was cleaning up after my dog when my roommate came home at 3 am. Not having enough sleep last night means my serotonin levels are lower today, so it could be easier to feel miserable. One good thing yesterday was that when I started to feel anxiety, I could tell it was just coming from my own internal mental state. I wasn’t sensing any kind of precognitive warning. This morning too, after my initial feelings of anxiety passed, I felt a protective calm descend around me, as if my guardian spirits were trying to help me. It didn’t feel like it was just some trick of my brain, which I think that calm feeling has been sometimes in my past.

I still have hope that everything will turn out ok, even though anxiety and mood swings have plagued me this last week. Stress is the cause of course. Still, I feel like I’ll be ok. I was able to put out resumes, go to a job interview, talk on the phone about another job offer, get $ 45 for my plasma, get 2 tires replaced for $70, and get 2 books I wanted for cheap, even though I was going through all this drama and stress.

Here’s my Soul Collage card about facing and dealing with Obstacles:

Rough, stressful times feel kind of like this.

Magical Thinking (and 2 dream fragments)

(from diary posts on Thursday, Aug 31)

My dog woke me around 2:45 am, wanting to go out. I’d been dreaming and thought it was probably a pretty stupid dream anyway, then realized it had some interesting bits.

In it, I’d just walked into a shop from outdoors. The items in the shop appear around me as I try to make sense of them. It’s a clothing store. I think the designer of these clothes is a woman, clever and innovative. My Dad is here with me. I try on first one, then another, historically-themed dress. The first might be late Victorian, but simplified, not historically accurate. The second is in a blue print that I think is an homage to Disneyland. When I put it on, I see it’s a pioneer-style.

I also put on a small pistol, attached to a chain hanging at my waist like a belt. My Dad doesn’t like that I have this gun. I say, “Why not? It’s not usable. It’s just decoration.” I think having this gun makes me look tough and like I can defend myself. – I wake at this point.

When I’m outside with the dogs and trying to make sense of this dream fragment, I think spontaneously, “These violent delights have violent ends.” I realize this is a reference to HBO’s Westworld and how Dolores is triggered to become violent. I say this phrase aloud to myself and realize I’ve used her accent in the show, the slightly southern prairie girl accent. I wonder if I was about to become like Dolores in my dream? The patterns on the blue dress might be a reference to the patterns I’ve been trying to sense and understand on a metaphysical level, or the ones Dolores is forced to repeat over and over, until she seemingly changes direction? Maybe my Dad also didn’t want me to have the gun, because it symbolizes when I wanted to kill myself?

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My landlady made a deal with me to take $ 10/ day off my rent because I was watching 2 little dogs for a friend of hers. On Tuesday, my left front tire blew out while I was driving back from a job interview. On Wednesday I asked my landlady to drive me to the bank, so I could move money from savings to checking for the repair and so I could give her my rent money. I handed her $300. Then she said, “I was thinking it should be $400, since I watched the dogs part of the time too.” She didn’t watch them for 10 days worth of watching them, but I didn’t feel like I could argue with her. I didn’t feel like I was in a position to defend myself, so I took out another $ 100 from my ATM and gave it to her. I didn’t even write a check for proof of what I paid her, like I usually do.

Feeling angry toward my landlady on Wednesday was starting to trigger vindictive feelings and thoughts of how I could get back at her. Maybe my dream was about to take on a Westworld theme, in which I play the role of Dolores in my blue prairie dress, so sweet and passive on the outside, but with a rage building inside as I recall all the abuse I’ve suffered? I was getting angry at Life for all the crap and hardship I’ve been through.

On Wednesday, after the trip to my bank, I had my landlady drop me off at the plasma center, so I could get $ 45 for having my blood pumped out, separated in a centrifuge, then having my blood cells and cold saline pumped back in.  The movie “Inception” was playing on the screens above the donor beds. I watched it in a strange state of mind. In the movie, the characters are in a dream world, with different levels, as they try to manipulate the mind of another man. As I watched it, I was feeling like physical reality isn’t fully real, like it’s just one level of reality.

I thought the level the gods work on is the level above our physical reality. Dream reality is one level. Cyberspace is one level. Virtual reality platforms like Second Life are another level. I thought that maybe when I’m doing effective spell work, I’m connecting to that upper level the gods work on. – I thought later that I often feel like I have one foot in normal reality and one in one of these other worlds, which is partly why I call myself Persephone.

The movie and my state of mind allowed me to have an altered state of consciousness in which I could easily imagine, visualize and sense my ideas. As I looked at the wall in front of me, I was able to visualize my favorite little beach in Fort Bragg. (Donors aren’t allowed to close their eyes for long while donating, in case they might fall asleep or pass out.)  I felt like I could sense and communicate with my Goddess here at this mentally imagined beach. Taking advantage of this altered state of consciousness, I decide to recite in my mind and mentally cast my favorite money spell. (This kind of mental magic is called Inner Temple work. Outer Temple work uses physical tools and rituals.)

When I recited the spell in my mind, I identified with the seed in the line, “As the rain upon the seed.” This line symbolizes money coming like rain falling upon a seed, a natural nourishing force. (Many people subconsciously think they don’t deserve money when they try to cast a money spell, which makes it not work. The wording of my spell evokes the sense of money being a natural force to which anyone is entitled – like the tide, rain, fruit growing on a tree, or honey made by bees.)

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Westworld does play homage to Disneyland, by the way, a place where our imagination becomes real, so we can play in it. In Westworld the dark turns of human imagination are allowed to run free. – “These violent delights have violent ends,” was a warning to me not to give in to the dark turnings of my own imagination. It was a warning not to become vindictive and spiteful, which was how I was starting to feel Wednesday night.

As a witch, when I feel angry toward someone I know pretty well, they sometimes have bad things happen to them, even if I don’t consciously try to hex them. I can’t say this to mundane people, because if they believe it even a little, they might feel afraid of me, which is not good. If they don’t believe it, they’ll think I’m weird and delusional, which isn’t good either. Some things are better left unsaid when trying to navigate living in both the mundane and the magical world.

After my landlady took more money than she should have from me for my rent, then dropped me off at the plasma center, she accidentally locked one of the little dogs I’d been watching in her bedroom. He tore up the carpet near her door while we were both out. When I got home, I heard him barking from her room and let him out. I thought, “Don’t piss off a witch,” and smiled in schadenfreude.

Normally people will say this was just a coincidence that she left the dog in her room and it damaged her carpet at the same time that I was angry with her. Yet, I’ve seen this same kind of thing happen before when I was angry with people. When it happens once, it’s easy to call it coincidence, but when it happens multiple times, there might be some underlying causal action.

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I had another dream later on Thursday morning. In it I’m poor and maybe homeless, since I’m pushing a shopping cart with my possessions in it. I’m still finding good things around me though. I come to a big public library and collect books that are being thrown out. They aren’t great, but I see some potential in them. I open one that seems to be in a foreign language and it’s all tables of these symbols I don’t understand. It seems like it’s for magical work of some kind. Maybe it’s in Arabic? Most of the other books are fiction. I put them in my shopping cart with a few other things I have.

I see Kathrin (my former landlady and friend). I go to talk with her, but she seems hostile toward me. She says the books I have are crap. I say they’re not very good, but they’re not that bad. Then she says I’m not even supposed to be here because she put out a restraining order against me after I was stalking her. [This is not from real life.]  I say I’m sorry and I won’t bother her anymore. She leaves. I go back into a library building behind me.

One of the librarians sees me and says I’m not supposed to be here because there’s a restraining order against me for the whole Sacramento public library system. She points out a green sign that says I’m supposed to stay 17 feet away from this building. I apologize and say I didn’t see that.

I go outside again and see the same kinds of green signs on the outside of the building. I move to a circular spot in the middle of the walkways between these buildings. The buildings are white marble. The walkways are lined with birch trees with light green and yellow leaves. The setting is very pretty. I don’t think it’s fair that I’m not allowed to go to any libraries anymore, but I think I can still find books in other places. [This idea may come from when I found books lying on the ground at the grocery store parking lot, the free ones I found at a food closet, and the ones a lady gives away for free at our local farmers market.]

I woke feeling first sad, then angry. I never tried to stalk Kathrin, though she was probably afraid I might follow her to her new apartment, hex her, or say bad things about her. I think these 2 dreams came from my anger toward my roommate and current landlady for taking advantage of me, and my anger toward how Life has treated me. I felt like I wanted to lash out and hurt someone, but I was restraining myself. I don’t really want to hex anyone. The green restraining order signs refer to me retraining myself so I won’t hurt someone. I don’t know why the distance on them was precisely 17 feet. That might be a precognition about something that could make sense later. In this dream I’m being kept from one of my primary sources of power – access to knowledge. I still have nature around me as a secondary source of power though.

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Today (Friday, Sept 1st), I went to 2 used book stores this morning. Thinking back to the Dimple used book store on Broadway, near the Tower theater, the scene in this later dream might have been precognitive of my visit here. I didn’t find books being thrown out, but I did find an odd bunch of empty CD cases tossed out. The pathways in my dream crossed at a kind of crossroads point, and this intersection is definitely a crossroad. The trees in real life weren’t birch trees (symbolic of new beginnings), but there are plenty of trees and bushes here. At that store, I got a science fiction book for 65 cents, by using points on my Dimple VIP card. At the second store, I got a book on how to read horoscope natal charts, which is kind of like the magical book in my dream. It’s in English, but the astrological signs are kind of like a foreign language. It’s also a reference book with some tables and charts.

 

 

Feeling Trapped (a dream)

In my dream (July 13), I first go back to my old job I had for 13 years, but 3 young Asian woman (like in my last job) are working there now.  They’re trying to run the dispensing and packaging line, but it’s not working right. Many of the labels are not date-stamped. Some bottles have double labels, some have no labels, and some are stuck in the shrink-wrap heat tunnel. The woman who was in charge day to day in my last lab job is dispensing, which means she’s the machine operator in charge of the line. She’s responsible for seeing if other people on the line are having problems, stopping the line, and fixing the problems. She’s not paying attention though, so the other 2 woman – one at the shrink-wrap tunnel and one near the boxing end – are both about to cry. (Note that in my dreams of this production line, it generally runs in a circle, rather than the L-shape it really was. This symbolizes the repetitive nature of our work and problems there.)

I try to help with production, but the woman running the line snaps at me like I’m to blame for the problems. I decide to leave. I say, “I’m leaving now. I came to work for free for one day, but I won’t be back.” I feel sorry for the 2 other women working the line, but I don’t feel any responsibility to stay and work here. I think this whole company needs to be sorted out and to fix their problems. (Note this is how all of my dreams of my old company ended, and seeing these 3 women from my last job in this situation, means I feel there are similar problems in that lab.)

I walk outside, but still feel trapped through most of this dream. There’s an older woman in one part who seems nice at first, but I get the impression that she’s really a monster who’s secretly threatening the other people who work under her. There’s also a part with a nice scruffy white dog, which I try to look after at first, but then think it’s infected with the same zombie virus as the other people who were working under that older woman. The virus originates with her. The other people want to treat her with respect because she’s a mother and grandmother, but she’s a monster beneath the surface. (She’s kind of like an evil stepmother in fairytales or the matriarch of a family of criminals. She corrupts everyone around her and brings them to ruin.) I realize I can’t fix this group or save these people by staying here. I tell them they should leave now before they get turned into zombies. I take the dog with me before it gets turned into a zombie, but eventually leave it near a house on a warm, dry hillside.

There’s a part in which I find myself back inside the building I just left. There’s a shop in the front of this big brick building and a lab in the back (which probably symbolizes Blue Diamond). There’s also a kind of commuter train with three lines – one with a neon blue light, one with a neon pink light, one with a neon green light. I take the green line (symbolizing money?), which takes me back to the same lab I’ve just escaped from. I go back and keep trying to find an escape from this place. I go through doorways, windows and ceilings. I keep moving uphill or skyward. Whenever I go outside I feel cool air and sense open space around me. I feel free then, but keep running into walls or ceilings that trap me. (The feeling of cool air may come from my window being open while I sleep.)

I come to a harbor with a castle wall next to it. I go inside the wall, which has a spiral stairway, a hall and narrow rooms in it, like in a castle. The hall and rooms have windows in them, some looking onto the harbor and others looking toward the land beyond, which is also uphill. The people here are celebrating a festival like Mardi Gras. A woman and maybe some others inside the castle wall seem like demons, acting friendly and nice, but maybe tempting and tricking the other people. All I want is to get away and be free. I think the walls don’t protect the people like they think, but are actually there to keep them from being free. (Note this setting may also represent the trap of temptation and addiction. This idea may come from reading a description of the meaning of the Devil in Tarot cards.) I keep looking for a way out.

I climb out a window and fly uphill, but then an awning of cloth appears over my head. It’s painted like the sky, but it’s still trapping me. (This could represent the illusion of freedom.) I keep breaking through all these barriers, all the while moving upward. I realize I’m dreaming. I wonder if the repeated sensation of cool air comes from cool air in my bedroom while I’m sleeping. When I’m “free” outside at the end, I realize I’m not really out of this world that keeps trapping me.  I wake then.

Notes:

Feeling trapped in this dream relates to feeling trapped in various jobs or parts of my life. Being in a job where I’m not happy can feel like a trap, but being unemployed and poor is also a trap. Being in the last house with Robert and Janae was a trap of poverty, isolation and crazy roommates. The household I’m in now is sane and not isolated, but being stuck in unproductive patterns of self-indulgence, guilt, anxiety and depression is still being trapped. I’m not looking for some Buddhist nirvana, but I want security, a job I like, a social group, and work for something I care about, so I don’t feel trapped in loops of boredom and meaningless toil.