I had another very vivid dream last night, as with all
dreams, they start in medias res. I am with a co-worker who I normally don’t
see other than to a few casual exchanges in the hallways. But we are together in this dream as a team.
We are in a hotel and another co-worker has been killed in a
very suspicious manner, blood and destruction are hinted at by the employees
who have seen the room. For some reason, my co-worker and I have been entrusted to investigate the
killing. (Ok, I know, I just finished reading a detective novel).
Someone hands me a wooden box with a sliding cover,
instructing me to lay the box in the hallway to set off a catalyst that will
allow me to see how the killing took place. As I finish laying the box and
opening it, a fog begins to seep out from the opening. I run to the end of the
hallway and suddenly, I am holding hands with my coworker as we are plunged off
a balcony and drifted off into reddish pink clouds.
We land in the midst of a crowd, she turns to talk to
someone, I turn to talk to someone, we need to know where we are, what has
happened, etc. But no one talks to us, and then I watch as my co-worker tries
to get someone’s attention and I notice that they don’t even see us.
I come to the realization that they don’t see us
because we are already dead. We are invisible.
My co-worker gets a look of blunted affect; she has accepted
her death with surrender and drifts away from me. After a turn of panic and
despair-will I spend eternity wandering the world dead and forgotten? I turn to
my original mission; I need to find out who killed my other co-worker. I am
determined.
I find my way back to the hotel corridor and see the
corridor filled with smoke still pouring out of the box. I run in, close the
box and the smoke dissipates quickly.
Then I watch as I stand in the detritus they have removed
from the room, I wait for someone to open the door so I can go inside the
room and see the crime scene. Oddly, even as a ghost, I have my iPhone which I use
to take pictures of the objects they have placed in the hallway.
One man is talking, he’s throwing out
theories on why the killing occurred. I can hear my iPhone’s camera clicking
and I’m taking notes on my iPhone when I feel a tentative touch on my arm. I
look over and it’s one of the managers at work, she’s looking straight at me.
The man who’s talking turns to me, his theories were for my benefit. Suddenly I
realize, they can see me.
“You can see me! I’m not dead! OMG! I’m not dead!”
End of dream.
I think it isn't difficult to interpret that dream, it’s
just a resonance of several themes that have been rattling in my head lately.
There are invisible people, we see them but we don’t. We
ignore them; they are the disenfranchised, the homeless, sometimes they are the
people you pass who turn away instead of making eye contact.
Lately, I've been feeling invisible. I can’t count how many
times I’m suddenly confronted with some car jumping in front of me as if my car wasn't already there. Or the lady who bangs her grocery cart into the back of
my shins but doesn't apologize and instead glares at me for being in her way.
Or the jackass who has pulled his chair out and when I pass, I say excuse me
because I’m polite. Instead of him moving his chair in so I can pass, he nods
at me as if he had deemed to acknowledge MY apology for disturbing his
ruminations. He never did move his chair up.
I acknowledge the fit of pique this provokes in me. But
apart from walking around screaming “I’M WALKING HERE! I’M DRIVING HERE! HERE I
AM!” There really isn't much I can do if people find me invisible. But I don’t
have to feel invisible.
In my dream, I brush aside the panic because I had a mission;
I needed to investigate the murder. Was it my insistence on doing my job, not
surrendering to the despair and simple acceptance as my co-worker had that
resulted in my becoming visible again?
Perhaps it is in that single line that I found redemption,
at least in my dream. It's a start.
“You can see me! I’m
not dead! OMG! I’m not dead!”
