Dream Theater

1. I tell you a dream that I would like help understanding:

I'm in a place that's crowded, maybe a train station or all the train stations I've ever seen in life including books & movies. It's messy.

I think all the people are versions of me - fumbling

around on benches and at different counters; we're carrying baggage, eating food with our fingers, trying to wrap presents. We're disheveled

and sticky.

The main me is snippy - like, mean - but deep to that mortified

I can't keep things smooth

and railing at the chaos for being so

self-replicating.

My mother is there.

She's old like she was at the end; a confused kind of old that can't stay online, that keeps slipping away, even from me, but is trying and trying to grab me and hold. I'm shaking her off

because I need my arms free.

I think I put her on a train - she's gone and I know it's no good - how will she navigate? all by herself? but I can't get to

it

I can't pause to think about it

for 6 weeks or 3 months - too long - and then I am

very sad.

But who will believe it? I did nothing for months. Someone says I should file a police report but I'd have to tell the police I did nothing

for months.

When I wake up I feel glad she is dead and safe.

2. I ask you to help me understand; to step into my dream: I would like someone to play my mother, someone can be the main me, who will be the train? Then I need all the other me's - can you be sticky me? Can you be me wrapping presents? - and someone to come in at the end

and notice my sadness

and judge it.

3. You ask questions and I clarify - the train never moves - I think I just turn my back on it. No, you don't say anything as my mother. Yes, you try to grab hold

of my wrist. Then

I watch you play my dream.

4. When it's done, you tell me - when you were me, how did it feel? How did it feel to be the train? As my mother, how did you feel? As the judge

of me -

what were you thinking?

5. We do it again. This time I shift what needs shifting - I'm me, maybe, or maybe you are again but you move how you would move if you were in a train station

losing track of your dead

mother. There's space for change and

something changes.

5. We do your dream.

Simple. Magic.