The Parcel
From the journal, 9/2/2004
*NAP*
> I'm seeing scenes from my life; people that have come into my life for a time and then gone. It is like a carefully organized train schedule. It seems to start when I run across some information or letters from people I met at the 1994 SIGGRAPH conference in Orlando [the first I ever attended, and a major event in my life.] I wonder what's happened to these people and see that we were all meant to meet at a certain time in our lives and then move on as if we are all on our own individual trains going their own way.
We always have someone with us for bits of the way, some longer than others. The schedule is relentless, with no time to rest. I see one section where I have the camera debt [a reference to a ninety thousand dollar business lease I managed, with difficulty, for four and a half years.] I see the debt, and then right on schedule it is turned off and I have to meet another train. The funny thing is, while the symbol of a train schedule and trips on trains are used throughout the dream, I am not ever actually traveling on the train. I go to the train by passing out of Creation to another Place, a Place that exists outside of Creation and is connected to it, but it is a bigger, non-material place.
When I get to the train, I pick up an assignment of sorts. Once I have the assignment, I have to go back to my life and deal with my assignment. At the end of the assignment, I meet the next train where I am given something else to do. I understand that it is very important to always pick up the assignment, to meet the train on time, to complete the assignment, and to catch the next train.
The whole sequence of events requires split second timing and an all out effort. There is always a terrible urgency to complete my designated task so that, not only is the work done, but so that I am in the right place and the right time to meet my next train.
In this case I was told that I was done with one assignment and that I had to go to the train to pick up the next one. When I arrive, I see the train waiting for me, about to leave the station. I am told some baggage [my assignment] has been left for me on the platform. I take a look and see that my art supplies and portfolios are laid out in front of me. I understand that I am to take them and use them to get to the next train at some distant point in the future.
The entire sequence is well-designed to show the progress of my career from CG artist to a fine artist/painter, though it is symbolic.
Comment
This is a rare symbolic dream, though symbolic content is more common in dreams with spiritual themes. In this one, I saw continuity and motive behind the events in my life. I wasn’t aware of these things in a waking state but could see the behind the scenes activity that resulted in meeting certain people and doing certain things.
This dream had my art suppies on the platform, indicating to me the importance of art to that mission. At the time, I was painting. Later, I became a teacher, then a researcher, writer, and photographer. Based on this dream, that would mean that each of those changes in my life were equivalent to so many trains, and boxes on the platform filled with the tools of those trades.
The idea behind this dream is tantalizing. The idea that we might have important missions to fulfill and that we fulfill them without realizing it make those mundane experiences so common to life seem less mundane.