The first dream I remember

I'm sure this is not the first dream I ever remembered, but it is the first dream I ever had that I still can remember now. Well, actually, what I remember now after so many years probably is a memory of my original memory of the dream. I believe I was about three years old when I had this nightmare.

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My mother and I were making cutout "giants." The brown quilt [that was frequently used in real life] was prominent. My mother showed me her creation: a small paper "giant" head. It was a jolly cartoon-like face, with a red mustache, bald head with red curly fringe, and a round nose. Then I looked at what I had cut out. I was not so skillful with the scissors. My "giant" face was a ragged, shapeless thing, white with black jagged holes for "features," but not in any discernible arrangement. It bore no resemblance to any kind of face at all. Looking at it filled me with horror.

An impossible assignment

Last night I dreamed I was attending a presentation in some large assembly hall [unlike any room that actually exists at my office] with my bosses S(m) and T(f). We were sitting on the left side of the hall facing in (rather than facing directly front). Everyone received two identical copies of the same handout (which even within the dream I found odd). Each handout consisted of two Xeroxed sheets stapled together. At the top of the first sheet was a rectangle containing containing some text. T told us to try to figure out the differences between that text and the contents of some audio that we would hear. The audio text was very similar to the text in the handout. I could not detect any differences beyond what seemed like minor transcription errors. I was not sure what sort of "differences" we were supposed to be able to hear.

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The assembly hall I'm sure comes from watching a piece about some school children from PS 22 that aired during the Oscars Red Carpet broadcast last night. While we were watching this, my boyfriend D mentioned that assembly area looked exactly like the one he remembered from his own school, and wondered whether it might have been built at the same time. This remark prompted me to look more closely at the assembly room shown in the piece. It featured the same generic wooden auditorium seats that I imagine feature in the assembly hall of every public school in America; the ones in my school were certainly similar.

The instruction by T to try to detect differences between some audio text and some printed text and my confusion about the task seems to refer to a situation I currently face in my actual workplace. My boss S, has asked me recently to be more adherent to project conventions. However, I thought I had been showing proper adherence to conventions, so I asked him for some examples where I had failed in this compliance so that I could become aware exactly what sort of mistakes I must correct. The first examples he provided though were not actually about any meaningful project conventions, but rather picayune instances of spacing or punctuation style (translated to "transcription errors" in the dream). I believe my feeling of being unfairly nitpicked by S, whom I generally respect but whose criticism I found trifling in this case, led me to switch his role: in the dream, the instruction to identify the insignificant differences comes instead from T, whose management skills I doubt and for whom I have little respect. The provision of two identical copies of the same handout may reflect my opinion that T frequently asks me to perform useless "busy-work" tasks, and also that I find T herself to be useless or "redundant" at my workplace.

The original texts on dream interpretation

Even if you don't subscribe to a psychoanalytic perspective, the following texts are essential reading for anyone interested in the topic of dreams:

The Interpretation of Dreams: The Complete and Definitive Text

Seminar on Dream Analysis. C.G. Jung (Bollingen Series, 99) (v. 1)

Psychology of the unconscious: a study of the transformations and symbolisms of the libido : a contribution to the history of the evolution of thought

Introducing LIC Morpheus: A Dream Blog

Most mornings I remember at least one dream from the night before.  In this blog I shall post accounts of my dreams on a regular basis, along with any interpretations that may occur to me.  My hope is to create a record of my dreams over time that may be of use to me in finding patterns in my dreams and their relation to events in my life, as well as of interest to others as an illustration of dream interpretation techniques.

I am not a psychologist.  I did complete an undergraduate degree in psychology (which confers exactly no qualifications), and have been interested in my own and others' dreams since my earliest childhood.  I welcome submissions of interesting dreams by readers.  Please use the comments to post any odd or interesting dreams you would like to share.  If you would like me to attempt to interpret your dream, please provide as complete a description of it as possible, as well as any associations it brings to mind and any possibly related events that occured in the one or two days preceding the dream.  If you would like to share with me personally a dream that you are not comfortable posting publicly, please contact me at licMorpheus@hotmail.com.