freud
I had a dream last night.
I dreamt that I was seeing a show at Workshop theatre and my friends from NYU were there, they were in the front few rows, center. I was left, and back a little behind them. Hannah was sitting a row behind me. The show started out with a man coming onstage and singing - not too great - when all of my NYU friends started standing up, exclaiming to each other that we were all locked in and they wanted to be able to get out. They looked at me for help but I didn't say anything. Then they started saying it louder and louder, "we're locked in! unlock the doors so we can get out if we need to!" until the man onstage singing stopped and said "oh, it's ok, I'll - I'll start over" and goes offstage, repositioning himself to start the show from the top. No one but my NYU friends is phased by the fact that we are locked in. Nothing after that happened, I woke up.
To me, this dream is sooooo symbolic of so many things, one of the most easily interpretable dreams I've ever had - if dream interpretation even exists. We were seeing a show at Workshop - a theatre from home. The fact that it was at Workshop and not at Town shows how the recent drama (no pun intended) in the theatre community back home is stressing me out lately, making me feel unrooted. Hannah does not represent Hannah herself, she represents my friends back home, or more applicably my life back home. The reason it's her and not someone from High school or someone who went off to college is that Hannah has stayed in high school, the same stage of life that she was when I last new her. My friends that went to college have changed, those relationships have changed entirely - some grown stronger, some don't exist at all anymore, no one is the same person. Although Hannah has (obviously) changed over time as well, it is within the same constraints, and so she represents something static - the primal element of Home.
My friends from NYU are obviously up front and center in my life right now, as they are in the theatre. Recently I've learned to put my own concerns in the back (and to stage left, I guess, haha), concentrating more on others. My NYU friends in the dream represent not only themselves but my life at NYU, and who I've become as a person there. They are not from where I am from, they are not clouded by tradition. They are able to see the stiflingness of home - they feel themselves locked in, unable to get out. They demand to be let out, unconstrained by my Home. I and the other Columbians around me do not notice the lock on the door because we have always known it - we just all figure if we ever need to get out in the middle of the show, the doors will be unlocked for us and we will be allowed to leave.
So, with my old life (represented by Hannah - but still keep in mind that this obviously does not represent HANNAH, as it is a negative connotation in these terms of the dream) over my shoulder I am confronted with the realization that my new self (represented by my NYU friends and their public clamor) will not fit into my old surroundings anymore. That isn't to say that I pretentiously find myself so changed that I am above the south or something - on the contrary, I have grown and changed to truly appreciate my home. But the dream was answering the question I've been asking myself for the past few weeks - "have I really changed? I don't feel it. I don't see it." Yes, I have, and it may seem unnoticeable to me but it is something bigger - I have to allow myself to keep that old life over my shoulder, while not forgetting that the door is locked and that it's up to me to do something about it.
I dreamt that I was seeing a show at Workshop theatre and my friends from NYU were there, they were in the front few rows, center. I was left, and back a little behind them. Hannah was sitting a row behind me. The show started out with a man coming onstage and singing - not too great - when all of my NYU friends started standing up, exclaiming to each other that we were all locked in and they wanted to be able to get out. They looked at me for help but I didn't say anything. Then they started saying it louder and louder, "we're locked in! unlock the doors so we can get out if we need to!" until the man onstage singing stopped and said "oh, it's ok, I'll - I'll start over" and goes offstage, repositioning himself to start the show from the top. No one but my NYU friends is phased by the fact that we are locked in. Nothing after that happened, I woke up.
To me, this dream is sooooo symbolic of so many things, one of the most easily interpretable dreams I've ever had - if dream interpretation even exists. We were seeing a show at Workshop - a theatre from home. The fact that it was at Workshop and not at Town shows how the recent drama (no pun intended) in the theatre community back home is stressing me out lately, making me feel unrooted. Hannah does not represent Hannah herself, she represents my friends back home, or more applicably my life back home. The reason it's her and not someone from High school or someone who went off to college is that Hannah has stayed in high school, the same stage of life that she was when I last new her. My friends that went to college have changed, those relationships have changed entirely - some grown stronger, some don't exist at all anymore, no one is the same person. Although Hannah has (obviously) changed over time as well, it is within the same constraints, and so she represents something static - the primal element of Home.
My friends from NYU are obviously up front and center in my life right now, as they are in the theatre. Recently I've learned to put my own concerns in the back (and to stage left, I guess, haha), concentrating more on others. My NYU friends in the dream represent not only themselves but my life at NYU, and who I've become as a person there. They are not from where I am from, they are not clouded by tradition. They are able to see the stiflingness of home - they feel themselves locked in, unable to get out. They demand to be let out, unconstrained by my Home. I and the other Columbians around me do not notice the lock on the door because we have always known it - we just all figure if we ever need to get out in the middle of the show, the doors will be unlocked for us and we will be allowed to leave.
So, with my old life (represented by Hannah - but still keep in mind that this obviously does not represent HANNAH, as it is a negative connotation in these terms of the dream) over my shoulder I am confronted with the realization that my new self (represented by my NYU friends and their public clamor) will not fit into my old surroundings anymore. That isn't to say that I pretentiously find myself so changed that I am above the south or something - on the contrary, I have grown and changed to truly appreciate my home. But the dream was answering the question I've been asking myself for the past few weeks - "have I really changed? I don't feel it. I don't see it." Yes, I have, and it may seem unnoticeable to me but it is something bigger - I have to allow myself to keep that old life over my shoulder, while not forgetting that the door is locked and that it's up to me to do something about it.