dream
I haven't been to DU in a while, but I appreciate feeling I can come here and share from time to time. I am pretty engaged in my dream life, and you always have compelling things to say when I share my dreams here.
The recent dream that's sticking with me:
I was sitting in a classroom filled with strangers, except for the teacher, my boss, an amazing and complicated woman in her early eighties. She was administering a reading test, starting at the far side of the room. One by one, the adult students read a single page of text out loud. It was a brief piece of simple prose, in a large, clean font.
Each student had difficulty reading the page. He or she would struggle through it, and pass it to the next student who would struggle.
I was judging them. I knew that each had probably had cultural and economic barriers to learning to read, and for a few, English was likely a second language. But after the 5th or 6th student, I couldn't figure out why everyone hadn't been able to memorize the text.
I was bored and feeling out-of-place waiting for the page to reach me.
When it was my turn at last, my teacher/boss crumpled up the page that had been passed around the class and gave me a different page. It was black paper with tiny hand-written words in faint pastel chalk. The handwriting was terrible. The print was very small. All that I could clearly discern was that it wasn't the same prose that had been passed around.
I was disappointed that I didn't have the opportunity to show what a superior reader I was. I felt the situation was unfair.
My teacher/boss said, "What's wrong with you? Can't you read?"
I held the paper up to her and said, "This is impossible."
She said, "Read."
I struggled through it and sounded just as stupid as everyone else.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Sorry.
Breathe!
There's a lot to be said for breathing.
I think it's about challenges. Your dream seems to be telling you that people new to the U.S. have a fairly simple challenge. You don't understand why they can't get it. Their goals are simple and "easy to read."
Yet when it comes to you, you have complexity and that keeps you from your goal.
I don't think the "immigrants" are real immigrants. They are newly integrated parts of your self. These new parts of you are not achieving, nor is the older part.
Note the pun, which dreams often have. "New to the U.S." "New to us."
Che
