The handicapped in dreams
I regularly dream of ghosts who show me their fatal wounds. They don’t all do this, but many do. In other dreams, I encounter people who suffer from a serious illness or physical handicap. Sometimes, I am asked to help them, and do. Other times, I just see the handicap. It happens often enough to be interesting.
From the Journal, December 29, 2023
I have the impression I am in Santa Barbara at night.
There is a group of three people in front of me. Two women and a man. They are no less than 55 years old each, but seem older than me, making them in their 60's or later. We are all walking, but they are slower than I am and make a few unexpected stops or turns, forcing me to stop or try to walk around them.
It is clumsy walking behind them, so I get in front, making a joke as I do so. They all seem to be in good spirits. As we continue walking toward the shops and the beach, I hear them talking behind me, and they are saying some funny things, making light of their slow pace. One of them, a woman who seems to be the reason they are moving slowly, says, "It's all my fault, and I know that nice young man walking in front us can hear this."
At that, I turn and say, "yes I can hear you, and there are no hard feelings or inconvenience felt by me. Rather, I enjoy your good humor."
The man then introducing himself, saying, "you can call me doctor."
At about this point in our walk, we reach a set of enclosed outdoor stairs leading from the street we are on, which is an overpass, to the street below. I enter first, saying, "It's hard to believe I'm back in Santa Barbara. Twenty years ago, my wife and I were enjoying Paris and London (approximately true) and twenty years before that, I was meeting me wife for the first time near here" (also approximately true.)
By then we have reached the bottom of the stairs, which are a wide set of the type that make two turns with a landing between. Looking back at the three people behind me, I now see why the woman is having so much trouble. Her left foot has been recently amputated. She still has most of her tibia and fibula (maybe not the fibula), but the end is shaped so that it can be fit into an artificial club foot.
She has something like that with her, but it looks almost homemade, like a square block of wood with a socket on top to receive the end of her sculpted leg bones. The doctor comments on this, saying that a particularly insensitive thief stole her actual prosthetic, so they're making do.
"I'm actually in some pain right now," she says as she tries to make it down the last stair, supported on either side by her friends. I watch for a bit, wanting to see her reach the bottom safely. Then I realize I'm not part of their group and they might not want to have a stranger watching them.
"I'm sorry, I'm kind of rooting for you now and wanted to see you make it to the bottom of the stairs. I didn't mean to be insensitive. I'll be going now," I say as I wave good-bye.
Then I wake.