Dear Dream Guy,I was walking in the conservatory with a friend of mine, and discovered a huge mall-like area that I had never seen before. I went up to a bank to withdraw some money, and got it back in coins. Some of the coins were dimes and quarters and others were some sort of large, copper half-dollars that looked rare and valuable. I stopped for lunch at a food court and set my coins down on the table. The table was close by a narrow walkway that went over another part of the mall. As my friend and I left the table to start to walk across the walkway, I jokingly shoved her. She was feeling dizzy and fell to her feet. I went over to her and carried her back to the other end of the walkway where I set her down and made sure she was alright. As I gently put her down, she tried to kiss me but, since I did not care for her in that way, I gently pushed her away. Before I had helped her over the walkway I had grabbed the biggest and most valuable looking coins from the table. I now walked back over there to pick up my dimes and quarters. The people who were now sitting there could not speak English, and I had a hard time trying to explain that I just wanted the money I had left there. But for some reason I insisted, and finally got the dimes and quarters. When I looked carefully at the dimes, I noticed that they were all engraved with my birthday and an inscription from my parents. I was touched that my parents would have done something like that, but confused as to how I could have gotten them from a bank I just happened to stop in.
What does it all mean, Dream Dude?
Oversleeper in Plantz
Dear Oversleeper,
Looks like it was just your day! Let me explain:
First, you discover this huge mall within the conservatory. Not an innately wonderful experience by definition, but it seems at least like a nice surprise. It looks like Lawrence has become so endowed that there is not only enough money for more practice rooms in the Con, but for a massive mall as well. Either that, or we’ve finally gone commercial, blast it.
Next, you go withdraw some money, only to find that you’ve received your money in coins, some of which are surely very valuable. Cha-ching!
Then, you grab some of the best looking coins—leaving the others because who needs those cheap ones when you’ve got collectors’ items?—and head across the walkway to another part of the mall—which seems reflective to the outdoor walkway that connects two parts of the con.
You’re in a good mood, and so you shove your friend as a joke. But alas! she is weak in the knees and faints. Luckily, you’re right there to lift her up gallantly and carry her back. Thus, her fall gives you an opportunity to do something nice—if not also chivalrous—for a friend, and you feel that much better about yourself.
Then, she makes the move. She wanted to thank you, but she also wanted to express some extra feelings for you, and chances are that she probably had thought about kissing you before that point. Maybe she just fell so you would pick her up and she could try to kiss you. But I digress. The point is that she showed you how much she thinks of you—in the dream, that is. Technically, what you were shown was how much you envision that she might think of you in real life. The interesting thing about seeing people in dreams that we know from real life is that we tend to portray them in ways that express how we feel about them, or how we see them in real life, not necessarily how they actually are. Instead of returning love, you gently tell her that you’re not interested. It was done very politely, but in the end you kept a little more dignity than she did.
So, you return to your table to get the rest of your coins. For some reason, you think it’s worth it to get them now—maybe because you remember that they’re yours, or because the event with your friend has somehow made you see things in a different light. In any case, you encounter some people who don’t speak English, who have apparently taken your coins.
Stereotypes exist in the dream world as well, it seems. Admittedly, it’s even harder to avoid them there, because we can’t shut them off as easily as in real life. But despite the minor obstacle of language, things continue to go your way and you once again hold all of your money.
And then, the final touch: your parents have engraved these coins for you in your honor; your parents were the cause of this final nugget of good fortune. And somehow, you knew right away that they were behind it. This may suggest a positive role that they play in your life, or positive feelings you associated with them around the time of the dream, at the very least. Nevertheless, it was as if there had been a benefactor all along, someone watching out for you all the while and constantly providing for you. And maybe that benefactor was your parents.
Not all dreams can be boiled down to a cohesive theme or message such as this, and they certainly don’t always turn out this well, but sometimes things just fall into place. And when they do, what can we do but sit back and wonder how we got to be so lucky?