Blue_Opossum

Morning of October 17, 1981. Saturday.



In this dream, I am walking with my old science teacher from high school when I lived in Arcadia (though we seem to be in Wisconsin in my dream). There is a mix of other males including a couple classmates from WWTC (WWTI at the time), and some coworkers from Eco (Ecology) 3 in La Crosse. We are walking through a large wheat field which seems to go on forever at first. The science teacher (who is male, but not very intelligent for his station) is talking on and on about something, but it is not clear what he is saying. I believe it may relate to whatever job is being set before us all to do.

Over time, we seem to be at work somehow getting wool from the wheat field (rather than from sheep - yet it is somehow still sheep’s wool), as some sort of industrial product for other companies. Eventually however, I am the only one left in the field, as everyone else is gone.

Over time, I find my way into a machine shop similar to the one I worked at in real life (Eco 3), but it seems to be abandoned. There are piles of wool sitting randomly askew over various punch-presses and drill-presses, much of it hanging off the edges. There is a strange mournful feeling as if everyone else had died or perhaps abandoned their life’s purpose. Later on, the pure white wool seems to have naturally changed into dirty or tainted “steel wool” from just sitting around for a long time - but is like wet, rusty iron (in a sponge-like form) that crumbles fairly easily, as if the workers did not perform their duties in time, I think, or again, perhaps all died before finishing their work and so the factory was then perhaps closed or abandoned from there. It seems an enigma, though.

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This dream dramatizes oversleeping. The dream state is represented by “wool” (and the field is recognized autosymbolism for liminal space, a specific level of awareness in REM sleep) and then the iron manifests as potential thinking skills and logic that is only viable in consciousness. It becomes rusty from both physical inactivity in sleeping an hour or so longer and the slower Saturday morning waking transition. The association with “steel wool” and its appearance may or may not be incidental, though again, the metal is mostly perceived as rusty iron, with steel typically associated in waking life with “stainless”.

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