Sean Tyler, Unknown Flora (2019)
Welcome to Dream Interpretation for Dummies, where Dear Abby meets Native Americana. Come to the campfire, peer into the yawning grave, and take a dive into the collective subconscious… or maybe just explore some weird clown imagery. We’ll wait for you here.
Howdy Note: This dream has been very lightly edited. Everything you are about to read has already happened, is happening, will happen…
Dear Howdy,
I had a very little frog I couldn't find anywhere. I started crying for it. I flipped off a guy who was there because it seemed like he didn't care. This fly kept following me. I kept thinking it was the frog but it was too small. I finally found the frog under a toy. When I held it, it felt bigger.
Best,
Erika
Dear Erika,
Thank you for the gift of your dream. A writer who I very much admire wrote that no one is interested in anyone’s dreams but their own, but here I am, writing with the opposite idea in mind. Well—maybe not the very opposite. Even if this interpretation is for just you and me and the scattered but assembled spirits that’ll be okay.
That said, sometimes when I am telling someone what I think something means, or what I know it to mean, which I love to do, truly—I am a double Virgo and an obsessive, I like to be right and I like for other people to know that about me, too— they say I wish you hadn’t told me that. Sometimes the truth, our perception of it, stings too much to bear. This is one of the prices we pay as seekers. However, I will take your participation in this, your willingness to gmail dot com me, as a wish.
Now, into your dream we go: The little frog has been lost to you for a long time, maybe forever. You don’t know what to call the little frog so you don’t. If you did, his name would be Past Life in This Life. He’s your childhood, he’s a happiness that predates childhood, a happiness that is only accessible to you before you become you. Don’t fret. The guy you flipped off, he deserved it. Even if he didn’t deserve it at that moment, ahem, we’re all human. He had probably done something to somebody at some time, so being flipped off in Dreamland is the least of his worries. He’s also a lesson: We are supposed to practice empathy, to become aware of our place in the world, but sometimes we can’t, you know? He was probably more concerned about his little frog than yours.
Everybody has a little frog, Erika. The fly is your anxiety about the little frog. This fly, this representation of the bigger picture, could be used as food for him. He could live his whole life on that fly, but he won’t. He’s a picky little guy, and who could blame him. This is another lesson, one harder to swallow: sometimes the thing we think is important isn’t actually the important thing at all. You found the little frog, and I’m glad for you, but once you picked him up, once you held him, he wasn’t a little frog at all. You grew him. Now you get to carry him home.
I hope this helped. I hope you are picking up what I’m putting down, so to speak. I’m sending you a dream about a pelican in a tiny fishing village. Let me know if you get it.
See you on the other side,
Sad Boy Howdy
Fancy a trip to Dreamland, pardner? Send your best to sadboyhowdy@gmail.com!