Dream: Race relations in dreamland
Sep. 29th, 2007 09:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mokie_edomRace relations in dreamland
I dreamt I was at the old house, which was now an apartment. The old woman who had lived upstairs had moved to the basement to make room for someone else, so it was like a triplex rather than a duplex, except that being in the basement meant she was paying less in rent. A gangplank had been constructed across the alley to the apartment over the old laundrymat (something I daydreamed about doing for years).
I was in the backyard at night when a white family walked past: a man and woman in their thirties with a young boy around five. The man approached the fence and asked about something to drink for his family. The woman touched her throat and cleared it, and said something like, "Just to wet my lips." I wasn't sure I heard them right (he didn't have a strange accent, and he was speaking loudly enough, but to my ears it was as if he was mumbling) and asked if soda was okay. The man said yes and handed me some money.
I ran into the house and looked for a cup, lamenting that I'd earlier taken a disposable kiddie cup outside and given it away to some passerby. I looked in the old kitchen, and ran upstairs. In the hall was the bureau/sideboard with cups lined up on the shelf. After much debate about what I'd not mind throwing out, I selected one and took it downstairs, pausing at a whiteboard to check the price on drinks and make change for the man. As I passed there was a conversation about a movie on TV in the living room, and I had a moment of guilt about being so noisy to the woman downstairs as I went through.
I went out back and the family was gone. I leaned out and looked down the alley and saw them only a small way on, so I called out, and they came back. I handed over the soda and the driveway gate was somehow open so they stepped in to receive it instead of accepting it over the fence. The woman took it, not the boy, and I apologized to the man over taking so long. A new second woman, chubbier, wanted to throw away some food bag full of fries nearby. I noted that both the man and the woman were far older than they had first seemed to me.
As the family left, I closed the driveway (making note of a notice on it about white supremacists and mentally rolling my eyes), threaded the broken metal tie's cord through the latch and wrapped it around to tie it shut. A young black man walked up to the gate as if to walk out, and I told him to go ahead and go over. He stood back and waited, so I said again, "Go ahead and jump the fence. I can't undo [the tie], because it's a bitch to re-thread." This was a lie; I just didn't want to do it.
He said nothing but went over to pick up a large disk nearby. (A second man stood in the neighbor's doorway, though the door was shut; he raised his arms. This is a tangent detail I'll discuss in the notes.) I thought he was going to smash the tie to open the gate, and got angry because he was creating extra work for me. I picked up a rock or disk of my own, intending to commit violence. He threw his disk either at the gate or my head; I don't remember, or remember which it hit, as I was near waking, but despite his difficulty with it, it was a very nerfy item.
I tried to scream but couldn't raise my voice; my ears just popped slightly and no noise came out. I tried to just yell, and my voice was soft and hoarse. I was more frustrated than scared, and had only just started to wonder why this asshole was cutting through my yard (and, in a meta-dream moment, why I couldn't just open the damn gate for him) when I woke up.
Notes and explanatory details
#1. I don't know why the old house was an apartment, or if it is at all significant to the meaning of the dream, apart from the possibility that it changes the territorial significance of some aspects of the dream by making it not quite my place anymore.
#2. In the dream, I was ready to bend over backwards to accommodate this white family's request for a drink, while I was unwilling to simply untie the gate to let the black man out of the yard. The gate was not even locked, as the lock and cord had been broken, while getting a drink for this family involved much more effort.
On the one hand, trust and territorial issues play into this: it's a older family unit with a small child vs a lone adult male (yes, I have trust issues when it comes to men; we know this already), and the family did not come onto the property until asked (and had to be called back to accept a drink they'd already paid for) while the man had come uninvited while I was busy elsewhere.
#3. On the other hand, that sign about white supremacists points a hard, stubby finger that's difficult to ignore. I don't remember at all what the sign said about white supremacists, except that it was unflattering and that I considered the whole matter some silliness. I have struggled over the years with the racism I grew up with and its mental residue that occasionally pops up at me out of the blue. The sign could stand as where I think I am, aware of it and opposed to it, while the dream itself plays out in ways that are clearly not as positive.
#4. I don't remember many details about the second man in the neighbor's doorway. I believe he is a reference to a (white, if it matters) man who tried to break into the neighbor's yard through ours a few years back--a simple threat to the safety of the property. He could simply be a cue to the frame of mind--insecurity, territoriality--or he and the man in the yard could be the Two Men, recurring villains in my dreams.
I dreamt I was at the old house, which was now an apartment. The old woman who had lived upstairs had moved to the basement to make room for someone else, so it was like a triplex rather than a duplex, except that being in the basement meant she was paying less in rent. A gangplank had been constructed across the alley to the apartment over the old laundrymat (something I daydreamed about doing for years).
I was in the backyard at night when a white family walked past: a man and woman in their thirties with a young boy around five. The man approached the fence and asked about something to drink for his family. The woman touched her throat and cleared it, and said something like, "Just to wet my lips." I wasn't sure I heard them right (he didn't have a strange accent, and he was speaking loudly enough, but to my ears it was as if he was mumbling) and asked if soda was okay. The man said yes and handed me some money.
I ran into the house and looked for a cup, lamenting that I'd earlier taken a disposable kiddie cup outside and given it away to some passerby. I looked in the old kitchen, and ran upstairs. In the hall was the bureau/sideboard with cups lined up on the shelf. After much debate about what I'd not mind throwing out, I selected one and took it downstairs, pausing at a whiteboard to check the price on drinks and make change for the man. As I passed there was a conversation about a movie on TV in the living room, and I had a moment of guilt about being so noisy to the woman downstairs as I went through.
I went out back and the family was gone. I leaned out and looked down the alley and saw them only a small way on, so I called out, and they came back. I handed over the soda and the driveway gate was somehow open so they stepped in to receive it instead of accepting it over the fence. The woman took it, not the boy, and I apologized to the man over taking so long. A new second woman, chubbier, wanted to throw away some food bag full of fries nearby. I noted that both the man and the woman were far older than they had first seemed to me.
As the family left, I closed the driveway (making note of a notice on it about white supremacists and mentally rolling my eyes), threaded the broken metal tie's cord through the latch and wrapped it around to tie it shut. A young black man walked up to the gate as if to walk out, and I told him to go ahead and go over. He stood back and waited, so I said again, "Go ahead and jump the fence. I can't undo [the tie], because it's a bitch to re-thread." This was a lie; I just didn't want to do it.
He said nothing but went over to pick up a large disk nearby. (A second man stood in the neighbor's doorway, though the door was shut; he raised his arms. This is a tangent detail I'll discuss in the notes.) I thought he was going to smash the tie to open the gate, and got angry because he was creating extra work for me. I picked up a rock or disk of my own, intending to commit violence. He threw his disk either at the gate or my head; I don't remember, or remember which it hit, as I was near waking, but despite his difficulty with it, it was a very nerfy item.
I tried to scream but couldn't raise my voice; my ears just popped slightly and no noise came out. I tried to just yell, and my voice was soft and hoarse. I was more frustrated than scared, and had only just started to wonder why this asshole was cutting through my yard (and, in a meta-dream moment, why I couldn't just open the damn gate for him) when I woke up.
Notes and explanatory details
#1. I don't know why the old house was an apartment, or if it is at all significant to the meaning of the dream, apart from the possibility that it changes the territorial significance of some aspects of the dream by making it not quite my place anymore.
#2. In the dream, I was ready to bend over backwards to accommodate this white family's request for a drink, while I was unwilling to simply untie the gate to let the black man out of the yard. The gate was not even locked, as the lock and cord had been broken, while getting a drink for this family involved much more effort.
On the one hand, trust and territorial issues play into this: it's a older family unit with a small child vs a lone adult male (yes, I have trust issues when it comes to men; we know this already), and the family did not come onto the property until asked (and had to be called back to accept a drink they'd already paid for) while the man had come uninvited while I was busy elsewhere.
#3. On the other hand, that sign about white supremacists points a hard, stubby finger that's difficult to ignore. I don't remember at all what the sign said about white supremacists, except that it was unflattering and that I considered the whole matter some silliness. I have struggled over the years with the racism I grew up with and its mental residue that occasionally pops up at me out of the blue. The sign could stand as where I think I am, aware of it and opposed to it, while the dream itself plays out in ways that are clearly not as positive.
#4. I don't remember many details about the second man in the neighbor's doorway. I believe he is a reference to a (white, if it matters) man who tried to break into the neighbor's yard through ours a few years back--a simple threat to the safety of the property. He could simply be a cue to the frame of mind--insecurity, territoriality--or he and the man in the yard could be the Two Men, recurring villains in my dreams.
