Thread: Fired from job, cowfish, and drowning cat

Real-life situation: I've just found out my lifeboat dayjob is drying up (no more rent-paying work for me).

Recurring dream theme: I'm still working at my old regular-hours job in a hospital psychology department while doing tech writing on the side. (In real life, I left the hospital job 11 years ago and now pay my rent through tech writing for one client only while building up a resume, reel and contacts as an actor - which is scary but it's what I love to do.)

The dream: I've just come back from two weeks' vacation where I'm on set. I'm swimming from central Toronto back to the outlying area where the job was. I'm in a lake swimming close to shore, with a swimming coach calling out that these waves can be high - four feet high! - and to watch out for whales. Suddenly I feel a slimy, living presence pressing upward against me as I'm swimming. It seems to be a whale, but then I notice it's a manatee. Only I don't think of the word manatee - I think "cow-fish". This cow-fish follows me and rubs up against my leg like a cat.

The cow-fish follows me out of the lake. I climb up and find two towels hanging on a hook and dry myself off. One towel is damp and the other is dry; I grab the damp one by mistake. I remember I'd used the damp towel to take a shower. I'm at the doorway to the hospital. I go in - discreetly, because I know I didn't tell Human Resources that I'd be off for two weeks - and try to find my office.

My office walls have been torn down and when I open the door, I'm outside in an enclosed courtyard. There are plants and carefully cultivated soil. I decide to go by the office of Joni, the receptionist there in the 80s, and try to find out what's going on.

On the way, Dan comes out of the men's washroom. I say hi to him. He stops me. "Navy," he says, "in this department, we have a policy concerning attendance. So far this year, you've been delinquent in attendance for 1057 days."

"What?" I answer. "No - look, I just got back - I'm looking for Joni. I can't deal with this at the moment. I'll talk to you about it later."

I find Joni, about to talk paperwork to the chief psychologist in the corner office. Meanwhile, I'm looking for my cats. Gonzo, the male cat, is in my office growling at the cow-fish, which now looks like a black foot-diameter cross between an angelfish and a terrier.

I grab a big tupperware container and go into the supply room to find Mimsie, the female, Gonzo's littermate. She's nowhere to be seen. Finally my sister Berta shows up and says, "I hope you don't mind - I substituted your big tupperware containers with these smaller ones. I didn't - you know - (shudder) - want you to - put a cat into something that food would be stored in later - you know?"

Ahhh, got it. I made another mistake.

A 12-year-old boy spots Mimsie in the supply room. "She's on top of the cow-fish!" he cries.

I put Mimsie into the small container, which has a bit of water in it. It's a tight squeeze, but she's only a five-month-old kitten. Then I go to talk to Joni. She's been crying. I ask her what's wrong and she says, "I'd only show these tears to you. I didn't get the kids."

I have no idea what she's talking about, but I sympathize and squeeze her arm. I offer any help I can. Then I tell her Dan just pretty much fired me. She smiles through her tears and says, "Great!! Now you can throw yourself full-time into what you've always wanted to do." We're hugging. She continues, "I mean, you're in your late 50s..."

"Late 40s," I correct her smilingly. I'll fight for those extra ten years!

I pass by Dan, who is sitting in one of the very informal meetings we're having, and he's shushing me. He starts talking about how I show up whenever I please and wear jeans and bring my cats to stay at work. "Aw, for God's sake, Dan," I retort, "Seth shows up carrying a bat and wearing a baseball cap! And Brianna with that piano in her office? Things have never been strictly protocol around here!!"

We get into a physical fight. I pull some martial arts moves on him. Someone pulls us away from each other.

I yell after him, "So you really are the Frank Burns of this Mash unit!!" Pause. "I said that to Seth 20 years ago during my first week!"

He's ignoring me. I go into my office to find Gonzo. By this time, Mimsie's head has swelled with water and she's turned into liquid. In fact, the top of the water looks like Mimsie's colours (and and white) in a pattern like on top of a Starbucks latte and this pattern subtly suggests the yin-yang symbol. I quickly open the container, find her chest, and to CPR on her. The swelling in the head turns out to be a waterlogged white mouse that's stuck to her forehead. As soon as I remove the mouse, she stirs and awakens. She sees Gonzo, who is a full-grown cat, and she immediately grows to adult size.

My mom shows up from where she works in administration. I let her know what's going on. "I'm not in the mood to hear any whining," she says. "We have to go."

Additional info: Because I'm doing a fireball-intense job search right now and finally seeking work in the film industry and in theatre, I feel panicked, but exhilarated. Also, because of the search, I will likely have to cancel a trip to the US to look after my baby sister Jade's toddler son so she can go on a pleasure trip to Europe with her boyfriend. She will likely have to make a 6-hour drive into Canada to drop the child off at my mom's and then go back and join her bf. I will have to get the plane fare refunded and see if I can pay back my mom, who paid for my airfare. The work in psychology (and later in tech writing for psychologists) has always been my "fallback" job, but one which appeared so safe that I was terrified to leave it for some acting career dream. (My family reinforced that fear.)

Astrological: Pluto is currently conjunct my Sun in my Fifth house, and is tapping at my Mars in my Sixth; Saturn has been sawing back and forth over my Tenth House since 2000 and I think has now moved into my Eleventh House. I am a Sun-Sign Sagittarius, but my Sun is unaspected; I am a Leo Rising (21 degrees) and I have Moon, Mercury, Sun, Mars, and Venus in Capricorn, Sun being in the Fifth House and Venus being in Sixth (this placement is an eating-disorder magnet, by the way, and that's been manifested in my life in the past). I'm pretty sure the rest of that group of planets is in the Sixth. I was told by an astrologist in 2000 that if I didn't make the career change I wanted now, it wasn't going to happen - or when Pluto reached my Sun, the universe would force these things to manifest. I've been making little forays into acting since 2000, but my day job has been taking up so much of my time and energy that it's held me back.

I've recently realized that I've always been interested in film direction, production, writing, cinematography, and editing as well, and music scoring (I'm a musician and composer with a CD out but I've neglected that for a while), and being at the helm of a film would really fire me up. I've recently directed participants in my scene/monologue study workshop, with success - got performances out of them I didn't expect anybody could get. Acting fires me up too and I love it, but I'd love to be behind the camera as well. I just don't want to do it negatively as a failed and aging actress.

I just saw a Facebook post about a bald cat liking a guy with a beard and rubbing up against the beard. Someone joked in Comment that she should get a bald cat and grow the hair on her legs. I think that may have something to do with the manatee.

My cats have always been like my children. They also feel like homey, sheltered security for me.

A reminder that working at the hospital (which I left in 2000) is a recurring dream theme.

Any thoughts? There is so much imagery in this dream! I'm sure it's there for a reason.