Swallowing Tar

I’m on a conveyor belt with a young woman on our hands and knees. She is being held against her will. I am helping her escape from her captors. They have trapped her on this sliding platform and every few minutes the belt slides backward and she swallows. She swallows mud, tar, and all the toxic shit around her. It seeps in, enclosing her in heaviness. I try to save her as the belt moves closer to the rotting mess behind us. I begin to negotiate with her; it will be easy to leave, if she’ll just listen to me. However, I can feel the tar against my feet and I think “I’m going to suffocate, I will die here.” But, in the nick of time, she changes her mind and we jump of the belt on to solid ground and we run. Crossing the empty school yard, we finally pass through the fence and our lungs open up as we breathe.

Obviously, this is a dream. I had this dream in the wee hours of the morning of October 15th. Eventually, my phone rang and snapped me back into reality. But the images from the dream lingered for the rest of the day, the details etched in my brain. I called a friend immediately and relayed it to him, ending with “analyze that Freud”. Although, I realize we are the best interpreters when it comes to our own subconscious. So I got to work, a little self-analysis never hurts.

How many lies have our parents told us? Have they lied to us about God? About death? Have they implanted in our brains various negative beliefs about who we are? Will we spend years untangling this mess? Maybe, may be not. It depends on our willingness to leave the black hole we’ve been festering in for too long. If we hold on to our tragedies, trapping ourselves in their image, we may rob ourselves of our right to become who we are. It’s time to get off the belt and run. Let’s breathe clean air, let’s move to higher ground, and keep it moving. The lies will be discarded along the way. With a clear mind, unpolluted and sharp as a razor, we will rise.