Swimming With Dolphins

One night several years ago (in between all the nightmares about being trapped in high rises, elevators, etc.), I had a dream that I actually enjoyed.

I dreamed that I was hired to swim around with the dolphins who were becoming unhappy in captivity at Disney World. I got to be an aquatic play therapist for dolphins.

I understood how the dolphins felt. I had felt unhappy in captivity myself for many years. So, the dolphins and I swam around together, and cavorted, and had a great time. I don't know how much this job paid, or how I happened to get it, but it seemed to make more sense than most of the other jobs I'd had.

I Dream of Elevators and Collapsing Office Buildings

I'm a mellow sort of person who loves gardening, animals, gourmet cooking, and the Grateful Dead. I love to visit art galleries, plant nurseries, and the library. I make art out of found objects. I'm basically an old hippie.

Why can't I have dreams about things I enjoy? Why can't the bad dreams stop? I have them just about every night. It's like a curse.

I dream about being lost in big gray high rise office buildings. The building's on fire and I can't escape. Alarms going off. Walls and ceilings caving in. Being trapped in elevators, stuck, going nowhere.

Sometimes the dreams aren't quite that bad. Maybe I'm leaving the job and packing my stuff in cardboard boxes. Every time I think I've finished, and the boxes are ready to go, then more stuff appears in the desk drawers. So I pack it up. Then I check the drawers again- more stuff. The office fills up every time I empty it. And I have to get it all boxed up, or I can't leave.

Often I dream that I can't find my way out of the office building. It becomes a surreal labyrinth with multiple corridors and hallways. I get lost in it. Wandering around lost.

I have an idea. I'm going to make a dream catcher out of the vines and twigs in my yard. I'll make the dream catcher from the healing herbs and the sacred trees, and I will ask to go to a good place at night in my sleep, not the bad places any more.