DREAM ABOUT ANXIETY ABOUT PARENT

This dream is common among young people... young adults, actually... who are at that stage of life when the roles with their parents become reversed.  It's an age when the young person (generally late teens to early twenties) no longer sees parents as authority figures who are stronger, wiser and all-knowing.  Instead, the parents are now fragile, vulnerable, and in need of the child's protection.  Sons and daughters at this stage feel they must now assume authority over said parents.  They themselves assume the caregiving parental role, and their parents become the children they must defend and supervise.

Here is the dream:

I had a dream that I was at my high school but everyone there was college age, and i even recognized some students I had classes with in real life. I was lost and intimidated by my environment. Then I saw this girl that I had a strong bond with in college, Pia. I call out to Pia and she approaches me with a smile. She used a nickname that she had for me, "Lil' Twin". I call her "Big Twin" and ask her for directions to my Dad's laboratory. Apparently, my Dad was a doctor at the school, and many students took his classes. She directs me to a restaurant, and I get confused. Why would my Dad's lab be in a restaurant? Then I notice that the restaurant is actually the school cafeteria. I am impressed with the high quality of the place. Then Pia shows me a staircase that goes several levels below the restaurant. She says, "I'll go with you." We go down several levels of stairs until we reach a bleak floor where the walls are made of metal. The place has high security with large bolts on the doors. I stand in the middle and ask Pia, "Where is my Dad?" Then my Dad comes out of one of the rooms with shorts and a purple tank top. He's smiling and holds gardening tools. I give him a big hug and say, "Hi Dad!" Pia hugs him, too. I guess they've met before. I ask my Dad what he's doing and he says, "Nothing really. Just work." I look through the window of the door he just came through and I see zombies in the next room, scratching at the window, trying to eat my Dad. I say, "Dad! What are you doing with zombies! They're going to hurt you! I don't want you to become one of them!" My Dad shrugs and says, "I can handle it. They're harmless." I am immediately concerned for his safety, but when I look at Pia (who looks calm), I realize that maybe my Dad is right. Maybe he can handle it. I ask my Dad why he has gardening tools, and he says that they are the best tools for dealing with zombies. I am utterly confused, but I give him a loving hug and tell him to be careful. He says, "See you tonight!" I think we have dinner plans or something. Then Pia tells me that we have a meeting with our co-workers. I didn't even know I had a job, so I nod and follow her to an elevator that takes us to level 7 of an underground parking structure. There are hundreds of students there, waiting for something. It feels wrong, and I tell Pia I can't stay. She says she understands, and I get the feeling that being there is illegal. She tells me not to go to Level 8, and I ask her why. She tells me that its pitch black and no one ever goes there. She thinks its haunted. Then I get a flashback of having once gone to Level 8 before. I get creeped out. I tell her, "Actually, I've been to that level. It isn't haunted. It's just a reflection of everything you fear." She smiles. Gives me a hug. I press UP on the elevator and the door closes. End of dream.

As we've already seen in past dreams, school or college symbolizes a time for acquiring knowledge.  This dream is a signal to the dreamer that the message coming from the psyche is one intended to educate the dreamer.

Seeing classmates one really knew from school/college days serves to affirm the intention of the dream.  Restaurants in dreams usually suggest nourishment of some type, whether psychological, emotional, mental or spiritual... or even materially real.  

Thus far, there are plenty of clues in this dream which suggests that the dreamer's "Dad" is a person who nourishes other people, usually people during an important part of their educational phase (which has nothing to do with chronological age, e.g., older people who keep an open mind, seek new adventures and who delight in learning new things often emanate more youth and energy than younger students who find the educational process a bore and a waste).

So "Dad" is the type of person who enjoys guiding and mentoring others whom he recognizes as in need of her nourishing support (restaurant).  In fact, from the dreamer's point of view anyway, the type of nurturing Dad provides is relatively "high quality".  He has a very youthful approach to her "work".   Shorts and a purple tank top are sporty attire... suggesting that Dad's attitude and style are of the "good sport" variety.  The fact that Dad is a doctor in a lab environment, with steel walls and strong bolts, suggests that this man is a healer who deals with potentially dangerous subjects... that his work is experimental on some level, and that he can be "killed" or seriously injured by her subjects.  

In fact, the dreamer has a real concern that her mother can become a zombie herself by being "bitten" by her own patients (a la zombies in "The Walking Dead," a popular television series currently on air).  What's interesting is that this dream doesn't deal with "vampires" who also infect with a bite, and the bitten become predators themselves as a result of the bite.  In this case, Dad would become a zombie if he didn't have the protections (glass and steel walls with strong bolts) to protect him during her process of healing others.  So, in all probability, her work has to do with psychotherapy of some type where being infused with her subjects' personal traumas could easily "kill" her own healthy perspective of the world.

Her gardening "tools" suggest that her skills are used with the intention of generating growth and health in those he helps  To continue the analogy, he weeds out the destructive elements, injects fertilizer and waters often.  Since many of those he helps are "dead" in some way -- whether emotionally, mentally, psychologically or spiritually, her goal is to bring them back to life.

Apparently, the dreamer has a real concern that her Dad could be "hurt" by her subjects even though Dad assures her he can handle it.

Interestingly, there is a Story 2 in this dream... the story of her friend, "Pia."   According to this dream, she probably has a "Big Twin" in her life, one who has the ability to calm her anxieties, to reveal truths to her (like about her mother working in a lab with zombie subjects) and who can survive easily in an environment populated by "illegal" peers.

In Numerology, "7" is the number of the introspective thinker, analyst and philosopher.  Aristotle and Freud would be considered "7" energies... able to think "underground"... come up with newfangled ideas and thoughts, which at their time might have been viewed as "illegal" by their peers.  According to this dream, Pia has a healthy ability to socialize with intellectually revolutionary types, while the dreamer herself is not inclined to hang out with such characters.  

On the other hand, the dreamer has already experienced Level "8"... pitch black and a place where one has to face one's fears.  To her, this isn't such a frightening place, because she has "been there, done that" and understands it.  "8" represents success in Numerology.  Whether she is consciously aware of it or not, she has an underlying belief that the road to success is by traversing the unknown territory of one's own fears.

Pia, on the other hand, socializes with people (including the dreamer) who apparently do that very thing... go  into their innermost selves and come up with ideas and values which aren't necessarily popular or traditional.  Also, while Pia possesses the positive ability to calmly accept the dangers of healing "dead" people and consorting with newfangled thinkers, she evidently has a fear of confronting her own fears.  The dreamer, on the other hand, has already done that, and is probably herself a newfangled thinker, but what she fears is the more mundane dangers of living life with positive gusto and trust.

In summary, this dreamer has received many messages in this dream, some comforting and reassuring, others  informative and revealing.  Essentially, her psyche is telling her two things:

1)  Don't worry about your mother.  She's apparently able to handle whatever she's undertaking.

2)  You're lucky to have a friend, Pia, who can reassure you and guide you through your mundane anxieties.  And she's lucky to have you, because you're fearless about digging into unknown territory.

Isn't it interesting that what comforts and fulfills one person... is uncomfortable and dangerous to another.

That's the dream for this week.  Snappy snoozling to my favorite audience.