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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…
Another Howdy Note: Summer Block is our latest Special Guest Dream! Find her writing here.
Dear Howdy,
The nightmare I most recall is pretty vague and fragmentary, so it might not work for your project, but just in case, here it is!
This dream I had years ago, when I was still in college. I didn't have any kids then, but I dreamed that I went into a basement and found a baby there. The baby had the head of a human infant, but its body was a fish skeleton, like the kind you'd see in an old cartoon after an alley cat eats a fish. The baby was crawling towards me, using the tips of its ribs as legs. I was horrified by the disgusting creature but also felt I should love and care for it, since it was in some sense a baby. I vaguely recall that my father was also there in the basement with me, but only as an onlooker, I don't think he had a large role to play in the dream. I also vaguely recall that it might have been my fault somehow, that I neglected the baby and it had an accident that caused it to end up in this monstrous shape.
Sincerely,
Summer Block
Dear Summer,
Thank you for the gift of your dream. We are officially in ~spooky season~ though my lived reality hasn’t changed much. I still live in an aging, haunted house in the woods. I still carry my (real) name, which is a marker of the season of ghosts. I still do the crossword, and drink well water out of a battered Newk’s Eatery cup, and put on gross amounts of my favorite lip balm. Despite these unchanging patterns, something feels special about fall. It has always felt like my season, despite the obvious connections. I love the leaves and pumpkins, apple cider and hay rides, the cooler weather and the marked new texture of my dreams. It is here, where most things decay, spirit away, and die, that I feel most at home.
On that jolly note, shivering and creeping into your dream (nightmare) we go: You’d be surprised, or maybe you wouldn’t, how many people write/call/text/ask me over coffee about nightmare babies, or pregnancy, or both. What is it about pure, defenseless creatures that make them ripe for waking up covered in a cold sweat? For that, we have to look inward, like always.
Before we get to why your baby looks like it does, we first have to dissect why there was a baby in the first place. In this instance, the baby stands as a symbol of your deep dread of some heavy responsibility, and also a reflection of something you don’t want to realize, or refuse to realize, about yourself. College will do that to you.
I agree with you that your father doesn’t have a large role to play in this dream, nor do I proclaim to divine your relationship with him, but he does stand in as a witness, a weighing paternal presence. Even if you wanted to abandon this little creature, you couldn’t. There is judgment to be meted out, maybe internal, but also external. You can’t get away from it, and you are trapped in this subterranean room with a creature you created.
This fish-baby, this cartoon-skeleton-creature, is so hideous to you because it is a part of you. It is, perhaps, the deepest, ugliest part of you, the part that you show to no one. You are terrified of it, but you are also seized with the urge to love it, to show it tenderness, as you had a hand in its making. This urge is correct.
You found me in the future, Summer. I cannot speak to your younger self, cannot show her a path, but I can remind you to show her kindness. She lives within you still. There are parts of ourselves that we wish to cut out, to never remember, to absolve ourselves of, but that can’t happen. We are the rings inside a tree and better for it. Let this remembered dream stand as a reminder to show yourself kindness, to hold close the parts of yourself that you’d rather abandon, to keep them warm, and allow yourself the delight of surprise when they transform before you.
I hope this helped. I’m sending you a dream of a mirror. It is antique and ornate. You look inside and see your older self. She is wrinkled, lined. She doesn’t look like you expected her to. But you look at her, at yourself, and you are content. Let me know if you get it.
See you on the other side,
Howdy