Dream Journal Twenty-three.

1.      I dreamt that I was in Marching Band again.The stipulation of my obligationtotheRoyal Regiment was hazy. Where,in actual life,the commitment would have been almost militaristic, I had felt at ease—almost – with skipping two sessions, although, judging by the background anxiety pervasive throughout the dream, my absences appeared justified to my mind. The mind-numbing shame of having submitted to social pressure  and surrendered my wits to the illusion of social anxiety–or, otherwise, the carefully masked Reality of this predicament as I had seen it  appear in the other patrons  and even moreso the employees of Denny’s the previous night– would not cease to torment me, like the archetypal subtle bully wearing a clown’s mask, throughout the early stages of the dream, as I found myself in high school again, both in terms of setting and emotional mood.This became particularly present when I set foot in the Band Room and was met with gently antagonistic,tribal stares from Shawn  and Conner ( if I am not misyaken in memory) that served to mask a deep anxiety, an act of hazing that leant another explanation for why my vision throughout the dream was ‘hazy’.

2.      I had justified my absence from rehearsal by calling in sick,I think, although whether or not my message had been received( if my memory serves me well in telling me that I had called) remains Kafkaesque. I eventually realized that,since I was a graduate, I was not bound by the limitations of high school, and that fact relieved my stress, though the tortured, absurd mood pervading the background of the dream still buzzed about. Mr. Horimoto had been present on the marching field,despite the presumption that I had had that the Royal Regiment was under new management,as it would be in the actual present day.
Regardless, Gary Horimoto was the opposite of his usual self: Lenient, frivolous as a lad at a pep rally with a letter painted on his chest, youthful in temperament as our Marching instructor from Senior year had been, and retaining only the gently unnerving tinge of Japanese sarcasm that made his character appropriate to the Kafkaesque scene.

3.      I had ended up skipping three Rehearsals in a row, using sickness as my excuse,* and I wondered if I was cutting it a bit close. Ultimately, I went to  a physical education class, possibly as a

                              had
* An homage to the fact that I had ^ two days off from work, a fact I honored although my conscious certainty of the fact had been short of 100%, and my mother had felt that Iwas cutting it close by waiting until the morning of to check when I had work today.

substitute for the missed rehearsal on the third day. The main activity that I had occupied my time with was weightlifting. I was left(more or less) Alone in the weight room by a somewhat thin, jockly man that one would expect a young, aspiring gym teacher to look like. I felt very self-conscious as I picked up first a small pair of dumbells that would have appeared childish even in the third grade, measuring fewer than the                              by my standards ^
eight punds that my mother had introduced me to then. I then moved to an even smaller, softer pair of green dumbbells [which I had only touched gently]. I then found a heavier dumbbell at the foot of a bench, but I dismissed it after a very brief consideration that immediately struck me as naïve.

4.      Eventually, a group of girls from the same gym program, came into the weight room. It had all been according to schedule. I sat on the floor, hunched over in a kind of self-righteous shyness not unlike that of Shawn and Conner. One girl, a fairly built but essentially pudgy girl with square features and green make-up,* placed her foot,manicured and with green nail polish,on my left leg.I would look over  my shoulder at her, as though to indicate the obviousness of the hint, and managed to get three tactfully delivered phrases in before lapsing into futility.

*Almost definitely a reference to the Denny’s waitress from last night that had somehow gotten the impression, either rightfully or wrongly, that I was attracted to her. The negative Anima,without a doubt.

5.      The final stage of the dream had me checking into a mental hospital. It is important to note that the structure of the dream was so consistent in mood throughout that the entire dream seemed to flow from event to event seamlessly,  as though everything were going according to plan.

The mental hospital cell was small and exposed toentry from at leasttwo opposite  sides.

Some fanatic wanted to free me.He protested to the hospital nurse, but I implored that he leave me to the solace of my cell.

                                                dm.A.A.