Dream-Drive through memory lane?

[VforVoluntary49]

I normally only remember snippets or flashes from my dreams, but I was quite sick yesterday and took some pm medication to help ease my stomache and help myself fall asleep, and I had one of the more memorable and vivid dreams that I have had in years, but I have little to no idea how to really interpret much of it. I am going through a lot of changes in my life at the time, which I explain more at the end. Any help or feedback would be great.

 

The dream began in what felt like a doormroom at the first college I attended. I was in line for a physical or a weigh-in of some sort in a doctors office, and behind me walked up two twins I knew from high school-we had been on the wrestling team together, but I have had little to no contact with them since. They are going to school to become doctors of some sort, but in the dream I had forgotten this and asked them.

 

I am then walking down the hallway to my dormroom, and the door is open. 2 women are in their, one of whom I recognize in the dream (but I don't remember how-I think it was a fuzzy image of one of my ex's who shows up later in the dream, but I am not a hundred % sure) and the other I don't know. They are watching the tv in my room, and for some reason I know I do not want them there. A former friend from this same college was waiting with them, half asleep/bored on my bed. As I walk in he looks up at me and noda vigorously. I then scream at the women and throw them out of the room.

 

The next thing I remember is that I am with my fiancee, but have to leave to drive to work ( I currently work a few jobs, but was going to my evening waiter/bartender hift at my uncles' restaurant). On the way I see my uncles at a house or different restaurant in a neghborhood. We talk for a few minutes and they tell me not to go to work yet. I stop into a house party I know nearby and am eating cake and playing checkers when another kid I knew from high school. He was a bit of a bully and an a-hole, but not to me (we had almost no interactions in high school). He asked me why I was ignoring Miranda (a girl I had dated for a few months and had stopped seeing for a few months prior to meeting my fiance. She keeps showing up at both of my jobs and asking if I am in, and is highly annoying). He raised his hand to threaten me, I told him I would go talk to her, and that he didn't have to worry, I always kept my word and never gave him reason to doubt me.

 

I go to her house (its around the corner form the house the party was at). I walk in and she is crying (I think she was one of the girls I yelled at to leave my room earlier). The problem is, I and everyone in the dream keeps calling her Miranda but the feeling I get of whom I am talking to is my prior serious girlfriend from a few years ago, Abby. Both are blonde, and I feel like the dream has merged them or that there is some sort of disconnect occuring. Abby was a girl who I had much in common with, and had a relatively amicable breakup with-we both were going to college in cities relatively far away and the relationship sort of splintered becaue of this. I stupidly told her however that I would always love to get back with her and give it another chance whenever she wanted-mainly, I was just saying this to make the break-up easier and to placate her feelings (which I am notorious for doing).

 

Anyways, we decide go for a drive to talk about things. We walk to my car, and pass a prior car of mine which looks exactly like my current one but feels much older. Abby/Miranda says I lft it there awhile back but it has been kept safe. It is locked and I left the key at home but I can look in and see various things from my past`, including some items from the job I have been in for almost 3 years but am leaving in a week. We keep walking and get into my current car.

 

We drive down the street but turn too early, and drive into a housing development. Somehow the street turns into a wide hallway inside a building and I drive to the end of it. I notice tire tracks and scuffs on the wood floor and walls. The hallway opens into a restaurant or bar room with about a half dozen tables in a half square around a bar and fireplace in the middle of the room. There is a bartender and only one half occupied table in the left closest corner. The room's walls are all windows looking out into houses surrounding the bulding, as if we are still in some sort of housing development. Although it was afternoon or early evening when we drove into the hallway, the sky outside of the windows is pihblack with starlight shining through.

 

We back out of the room, and I realize I am late ofr work and need to drive to my uncles' restaurant and have to take her with me. The whole time of the dream other than when talking about my old car Miranda/Abby has been silent and either crying or sad/upset, but has said or done almost nothing, simply following. I realize we have to go back to the hidden restaurant for something, and we drive down the street/hallways again. This time, it is early morning (just after dawn) outide the windows, and also my car has turned into a scooter we use to roll down the hallway. It is all silver, with a much thicker bottom then usually on similar scooters. It is also more squarelike, and adjusts to become longer or shorter depending on how many people are riding.

 

We leave the hallway, and are back in my car driving to my work. Along the way, we pass the neighborhood I used to live in and turn into a shopping development that is nearby to get gas for my car. The neighborhood is one I lived in for the first 10 years of my life, and is right down the street from my church and elementary school (I went to Catholic school for about six years). The shopping development is right next to my (former) church, and in real life has no gas station located in the parking lot but it does in the dream. I drive somewhat quickly out of the street and into the parking lot because I am in a hurry, and make a number of swerves to make it up the curb. A few police officers are watching from the parking lot and drive over with the lights flashing as I pull up to the gas pump. I get out of the car and am informed I owe a $200 fine for making an illegal right turn into the parking lot and also for speeding, but the sleezy police detective I am talking to informs me that I can also get out of the ticket if I pay him $5. I start crying and inform him that I can't do that, that I am going to law school to be an attorney and I can't have bribing a police officer on my conscience or on my record if I am ever caught. He walks away, and a middle aged, hispanic, female police chief walks up and I tell her the choice I made, and she gives me a hug and wishes me luck.

 

I go back to my car, balling my eyes out and see a black man two cars ahead of me pull out a knife, and then I see the man right ahead of me pumping gas pull out some sort of machine gun. They are looking at the police officers, and look like they are going to either rob somebody or attack the police officers first, but they do not notice me. I step on the gas and run over the man in front of me with the gun, and the man with the knife brandishes it and stares at me, but doesn't move. I am mortified I ran the man over but I also feel like I know it was the right thing to do. I get out of the car and look at who it was I ran over, and it apparently is Kel Mitchell (an obscure Nickelodean actor from the late 90s early 00's, from "Kenan and Kel" (one of my favorite shows growing up, "Good Burger", "All That", etc. he has had a very up and down career since then, and there was a time when there was a false story that he had died or had been killed that I had believed for awhile. In the dream, I freak out and believe that it was now myself who had killed Kel. Thats the last thing I remember before waking.

 

Brief personal background. Atheist and anarcho-capitalist 23 year old college student-I will be attending law school this fall, and begin in one week. I began listening to Stef's podcasts about 8 months ago, and they blew my mind-felt like they were saying many of the things I had always felt or thought but never had words for at the time. I began cleaning up my personal life, and since then I have graduated undergrad (after 5 years), I recently put in my two weeks at job I hate and will be leaving the same time school starts, I proposed to my girlfriend of 18 months at the time and our relationship has improved by leaps and bounds in the time since I began listening to the podcasts, and I have become more brave and assertive in my personal and familial relationships-we had been keeping the engagement secret from my family for a few months until we got our plans more in order, and just recetly we came out to my mother, which went....well, it could hve gone worse but not by much, and mostly confirmed much of what I already suspected about my mothers unwillingess to share in her childrens' happiness if it doesn't conform to her definition of what "happiness" or "success" is. Finally, the Abby girl came back into my life recently, trying to get me to break up with my fiance and get back with her. She has a history of mental illness and depression, and I had to be very firm with her but was worried she would do something drastic. Anyways, any interpretation or feedback about what this mess of a dream is is more than welcome, and I can answer any other questions as well.

[MrCapitalism]

I think the first part of the dream was pretty accurate, in that you were waiting in line for some sort of examination. Your dream was very lengthy or very condensed, and seems like an examination of the choices you have made in your past. The part about bribing the officers is very interesting, especially since you're an AnCap who's about to enter law school. What are your opinons on that choice (going to school)?

[VforVoluntary49]

I don't plan on entering any corporate law, prosecutorial law, etc.-I will do my best to avoid any direct contact with the state wherever possible. My likely career goal is to become a defense attorney or a public defender for much of my career, doing my best to defend people who are unable to defend themselves in this arena. I feel that I will be happiest using my mind and my gifts in this arena to do what I can to be a voice for those who don't have one. I can live relatively simply, so I don't see myself being tempted with lofty career goals/dreams of becoming rich. Truth be told, I made the decision to enter law school while still a minarchist, with intentions of possibly using it as an avenue to become a politician or to have some influence on reducing the state or ratrding its growth in some ways. After making the final leap, those goals are gone but I still feel that this is one of the areas that I can do the most good, both in terms of helping people and using my skills most productively, while giving me a strong enough income to continue studying philosophy and hopefully enough income to allow my wife to stay home and homeschool our future children.

*side note* I was in and out of sleep at certain parts of the dream, so I am not sure if it was one continuous dream or a number of loosely connected dreams back to back. One of the main things I feel that I got from the dream was an evolution of my assertiveness-in the past I was very unobtrusive and would usually surrender my opinions or desires to other people's preferences/choices, especially with women and in my personal relationships. I was also very unassertive when relationships were ending, and would often take the weasely route of making my girlfriend at the time break up with me to remove the direct responsibility from myself. This has changed as my understanding of philosophy as grown, and I think that may have been reflected in my actions in the dream-throwing the women out of my room, not bribing the officer, etc. which may mirror how I dealt with my ex when she reentered my life, and is telling me I will need that same strength of will to survive law school with my "soul" intact

[VforVoluntary49]

The short version is that we had known each otehr for years in high school, had been friends in theater, hung out a few times. We both went away to school, but I moved back a few years ago transferring schools and she was home for a summer, and we started talking and hanging out. We ended up dating for about 4, 5 months-we had very similar backgrounds, both very smart, into sports, theater etc. However, she had severe depression and mental disorders, which I found out as we began dating (anorexia, cutting herself) and would often avoid or ignore her therapist, and it became a very unhealthy relationship. We ended up fighting a lot, and I felt like I was just a crutch so we ended up breaking up when she went away to grad school. This was 3 years ago.

 

We texted occasionally after awhile had gone by, neither of us dating anyone, but just as friends. I began dating my current girlfriend/fiance 2 years ago, and I hadn't heard from Abby in a long time. About a year ago, she texted me and we talked a little-I had problems in relationships in the past, asserting myself with women-I had a hard time breaking up with them (usually did the thing where you drive them away and make them leave you) and also when I would be broken up with a woman I was always far too nice and friendly-I guess I would always try to leave my options open, in case the relationship I was in didn't work out. I stopped doing that, and reevaluated myself and that part of my life as I became interested in philosophy, psychology, etc (FDR, etc) in January, which is when I proposed to my fiance.

 

The problem is that last year when Abby and I texted occasionally, I was too nice. She apparently didn't know I had a girlfriend, and was talking like she wanted to get back together some day, she missed me etc. I said things like "In some ways I wish it had turned out differently" and "Maybe someday in the future we can try again who knows" etc. I'm always worried if I tell her a hard truth she may go back to cutting or stop eating (what she usually does to handle stress). Then she stopped talking to me for almost another year, during which time she dated another guy and broke up with him, and I got engaged. About 2 month ago she was in town, and asked to have dinner. I agreed to go, to she if she was any healthier/better and to clear the air. I did keep it from my fiance at first, because I try to keep that part of my past under wraps.

 

At dinner, it was obvious she still didn't know I was engaged or even dating anyone, and she definitely looked severely skinny, which made me think she was back to not eating (she ate very little at dinner too). Later, she started texting me, being very flirtatious and wantig to get back together, and in the past I probably woud have led her on, cheated on my fiance and just drove my current girlfriend away and went back with abby, until I ruined that relationship too. I know that thats my tendency and I told her no, I told her the truth that I was with someone, can never be with her, etc.

 

She snapped, freaking out, threatening to send saved conversations we had in text messages to my fiance, etc. The messages weren't altogether bad, but the fact it had occured behind my fiances back was the worst part. I begged her not to, and she said she woudnt if we just hung out and "dated" and saw where it went and if we had a good time then I had to break up with my fiance or she would try to ruin my life. This discussion went on for about a week-I barely slept, ate, didn't know what to do. I finally snapped, yelled at her, told her why I was so nice (afraid she would do something stupid) but that I didn't care at this point, I would never go out with her in a million years, and that I was going to confess to my fiance and if she wanted to leave me so be it. I have not heard from her since then.

 

I confessed to my fiance, and she was amazingly understanding-she could see how pained I was, and she knows how much I have changed with her, and our relationship has been so much better since. The week or so was one of the most stressful times in my life though, which may be why it resonated in my unconscious.