slumber

The Dream:

Once again, I find myself pregnant in the dream world. This time I'm back at school and I've just gone to see the school guidance counsellor to see what I should do. She's a very calm and therapeutic dream character and she puts me at ease.

She tells me she should have a look at me to see if there are any complications. She takes me outside her office and towards a golden bathtub sitting at the end of the hall. She asks me to undress and sit in the tub, but only if I feel comfortable doing so in such a public place. I start removing my shoes but when I'm about to take off my jeans, the previously empty hall is now bustling with people and I no longer want everyone to see what's happening.

She tells me that's alright and that she'll meet me in a room in the basement where there shouldn't be so many people. I then walk down three flights of stairs to the basement. There are some people loitering around but within this basement there's an "inner room" which is completely empty except for a row of beds. Relieved at having finally found some privacy, I'm about to go into the room when I'm suddenly interrupted by Adam (a classmate) who asks me if I'm here for Justin Bieber's morning maths lecture. I'm horrified to realize I also happen to have a morning lecture with Professor Bieber and that I'd been skipping it in order to see the counsellor.

Suddenly the previously empty inner room turns into a classroom and there are desks with students in them and a teacher at the front writing on the board. I sit at the back of the classroom. As the teacher starts his lesson, I start wondering how on earth I wound up being pregnant in the first place. I wonder if the events that led me to be pregnant actually happened or if it was all just a dream. I (stupidly) decided it must have actually happened.

The counsellor is back again and sits behind me in the classroom. She asks me if it's alright if we continue at the back of the classroom where no one will see us. I tell her "No, Adam is my classmate and I'll be mortified if he sees me back there."

So instead I just try to pay attention to the lecture. Everyone seems to understand except for me.

Notes:
Prior to this dream, I had pretty much decided I didn't ever want to have children until I was past 30. The counsellor character sticks out to me because she was a calming presence in the midst of my anxiety. The golden bathtub is also memorable...perhaps because it's so misplaced in the middle of a school hallway?

The theme of trying to find a private place to undress but being unable to find it prevails again. I don't know what else this could mean except that it just reflects my own anxieties about being around people. In each of these dreams, I'm often trying to hide something that is under my clothes (i.e. underwear, a pregnant belly). I'm worried about people finding out about my secrets---whatever those are.

Re-occurring elements:

• the failed search for a private space
• a bathtub
• pregnancy

Dream Signs:

• I'm pregnant (duh)
• I'm also apparently back in high school
• the random bathtub in the middle of the hall