Spicy Chicken Induced Dreaming

The dream this time is one of those weird after-you've-eaten-something-kind-of-dreams. It is a fact that sometimes eating certain meals can effect how you dream. Last night, I cooked a spicy chicken meal that has given me heartburn and has induced a strange dream. 

In this dream I have packed my bags and I have left for a weekend getaway to some sort of veteran's community or senior housing facility, I don't know which, and the rules say I must get my head shaved at the community barber shop before I can be allowed to stay. Sounds like some kind of cult doesn't it? Or I have joined some sort of paramilitary group?

Here is where it gets weird: I am carrying a plastic shopping bag in my hands, filled with personal toiletries, like razors and tooth paste, and one of the assistant managers at this community, and the barber, tell me I must go outside and drop my bag into a chute for safekeeping to be picked up after my haircut. The bag breaks while I am holding it over the chute as I was about to drop it in. I wince as all my stuff tumbles loose and falls down the chute. I explain to the assistant manager I need these items for this weekend. It is important to be able to brush my teeth. He is a most sympathetic, happy-go-lucky man and eager to help. He gives me instructions on how to operate the elaborate chute retrieval system. The man guides me through the process. The procedure is like launching an intercontinental ballistic missile involving turn keys. A pod at the bottom of the chute is activated and mechanically elevates and brings up all the goods for me to sort through and to find my missing items.

Meanwhile, as all this is happening, the head manager comes storming up and asks, "What the hell  are you doing! Doesn't any body follow my orders around here?"  This procedure is a violation of the rules and he is very angry, at all the staff, for allowing this to happen. He is cussing like a mad man while he stomps around the property and screams at every one who crosses his path. He is definitely a tyrannical unhappy manager. This is the point at which I wake up.

Well, even though this dream is wonderfully absurd it still offers some insights into my psyche, as all dreams do. I have a history of working in stressful work environments for utterly disagreeable people. These are the places and the people I want to entirely forget I ever met or experienced. It is interesting that these things still ruminate in my unconscious. My conscious self is done stressing over these past experiences, yet my unconscious self still obsesses over that old trauma. I may consciously choose to be healed and get on with my life, but the wounds of those emotional days, still linger on in my unconscious, they won't easily go away, and that is quite a revelation.

The unconscious takes in stimulus all the time. It is constantly being shaped and affected by it's environment and most people live their lives unaware that this process is taking place. It may seem to have its own memory. In some ways it has it's own personality, but in fact, it is our most essential authentic core self.  Any effort at getting to know it and how it operates is a worthwhile endeavour. Being conscious of the unconscious and what is going on there is the first step into self mastery, and enlightenment or at the very least a method of declaring a truce with our inner and outer selves.

The old work place traumas still manifest in my unconscious. The mystery is if I can ever purge my unconscious of this. Is it even possible? It almost seems as if these things have forever recorded themselves within my psyche. My conscious self has plastered over them, but the imprint it seems is forever and has shaped who I am today both consciously, and unconsciously. Now the import of that is deep thing to ponder!