It’s Front Row!

The Dreamer is inside an elevator, daytime.

The elevator opens. The Bully, his friend Rory, enters. Rory is unusually stone silent. He is walking the Dreamer’s dogs: Rico (living) and Wexley (dead). Wexley is very excited to see the Dreamer. The Dreamer is excited to see Wexley, and begins to pet him. Meanwhile, the elevator door begins to close. Rico sneaks between the elevator doors, Rory holding one end of the leash and Rico on the other side of the door. The elevator begins to move, going down.

Then the Dreamer is inside the daylit lobby of a government building. There is a circle of people talking. One of the people is Brendan Owens (former Chief Sustainability Officer at DoD). The Dreamer tries to join the conversation, but it is not a conversation that is open to him. Then the Dreamer is inside of an arcade. The Dreamer’s college friend Tristan Webb is playing a strategy game, alone. The Dreamer tries to engage with Tristan, but Tristan is not interested in talking: he is playing the game. Then the Dreamer is outside. There is a naval war simulation. The Dreamer boards a Nazi boat. The Nazis are friendly to the Dreamer, and show him the buttons on the boat, but it is no use, the ship is going down.

Then the Dreamer is inside a bright gymnasium, playing basketball. There are more than two teams (chaos), and there is a distracting big screen that is showing another basketball game, and the basket is a giant laundry basket. The Dreamer takes a pass from his teammate, and it is a piece of the Dreamer’s dirty laundry. The Dreamer receives the pass, and attempts to shoot the dirty laundry into the basket, but misses. Then the Dreamer is dribbling a basketball and a grammar school era friend Douhig slaps him on the wrist. “It’s a foul,” the Dreamer complains. The Dreamer and Douhig argue about the foul, then they play the slap game that kids used to play in grammar school where two people put their hands on top of each other and one tries to slap the other.

Then the Dreamer is outside, at night. The Dreamer is following a train: inside the train are the basketball players. They left the Dreamer behind. He has a headlamp, and is following them on foot. He follows the train to a parking lot. Security of the parking lot questions the Dreamer, but then lets him in. Then the players’ train is a bus. Then the bus is unloading the players and a large amount of dirty laundry. Then the Dreamer is in the bed of his truck, sorting dirty laundry with Jenny (from the Stadium dream). The laundry is a mix of all of the players laundry, because everyone was shooting it into that giant laundry basket in the gymnasium. The Dreamer separates some of his laundry, like his socks, but it’s not all there. He also sees his wife’s valuable laundry in the truck bed, and her valuable shoes. Luckily, these items have not been mixed into the chaos.

Then the Dreamer is inside the bus, looking for the rest of his dirty laundry. There are lots of players from all of the teams doing the same thing. The Dreamer finds some of his clothes, keeps searching, and wonders how they are ever going to get all of the laundry sorted this way. Then the Dreamer is inside a basement. Inside the basement there are some of the team players that have stalls, like marketplace stations, and they have piles of laundry that have been folded. The Dreamer notices another player has stolen a piece of his laundry, and confronts him with anger. That player easily relents. Then the Dreamer goes to another stall, and sees a pair of his sweatpants in the player’s pile (these are aggressive designed sweatpants called “Born Dead”). The Dreamer takes his pants out of the pile and confronts the player, who is Asian, calling him a “bitch”. The player responds aggressively saying, “It’s front row”. The Dreamer says “that’s not the brand!,” but the other player just keeps aggressively repeating “It’s front row,” as if the Dreamer doesn’t understand. The Dreamer balls his fist and anticipates a fist-fight.

Context: I’ve tried working with Brendan Owens as a lobbyist for my company, but it wasn’t a good fit. I’ve been reading a book called the Dual State, about the politics of National Socialism.

Associations: “That ship has sunk.” I was a very aggressive basketball player, it was an aggravation. I was always fouling other players. “Airing dirty laundry.” “The train/bus has left the station.” “A front row seat to the action.” Incidentally the graphic sweatpants in the dream were once “liked” by a contractor who was working at my house. This contractor had a Nazi tattoo on his hand.

Feelings: fear, confusion, frustration, aggression

Interpretation: This is a dream about aggression in the attitude. First off the Dreamer sees his friend Rory, the archetypal Bully. But Rory seems subdued, walking the Dreamer’s dogs. Rico (the living dog) sneaks out of the elevator, and Rory is still holding the leash. If Rory doesn’t let go of his “leash on the living” it could cause harm to the dog. Then the Dreamer is faced with the social circle motif. He is looking for the group to which he belongs. He does not belong to Brendan Owens’ government group. The Nazi’s invite him on board a sinking ship. The first one is “not a good fit”; the second one is a futile endeavor. Then the Dreamer joins an absurd basketball game, “airing dirty laundry”. In the game he confronts aggressive feelings, rooted in grammar school. “I was too aggressive,” he says. The “train has left the station”, the Dreamer has left that particular version of aggression behind, but he still follows that train of thought. The sorting of all of this laundry, mixed with the other players, is a possible but frustrating endeavor. The laundry items — like gym socks — are not valuable. Why doesn’t the Dreamer just let it go? He can buy new items. That would seem a better solution then the futile endeavor, or aggressive confrontation, or fist-fighting other people over sweatpants. Instead, the Dreamer’s attitude is “stalled” in aggression.