by Daniel Quinn
She paused to let that sink in.
“Why stories?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Nobody knows. For some reason, our unconscious, dreaming self—which I’ve called our dreaming advisor—prefers to communicate with our conscious, waking self through the medium of stories. And there is no doubt that, at first glance, these stories generally seem absurd, incoherent, and meaningless. And in order to under-stand them, we have to begin with something like an act of faith. We have to say, ‘This story, which seems completely absurd, incoherent, and meaningless, means something. In some fashion or other, yet to be discovered, it makes sense. Unlikely as it seems, my dreaming self is trying to tell me something. Let’s see if I can figure out what it is.’ Does anyone have a dream I can use to illustrate what I mean?”
The audience answered with some uneasy shuffling. The woman in front of Greg elbowed her husband in the ribs; he grunted and shook his head. A young woman near the front darted up to the podium and handed over a sheet of paper, which the speaker glanced at, then read aloud.
“‘I dreamed that for some unknown reason my mother came to my home to live. When I went to my drawer to get my favorite sweater, I found it had been stabbed in the right arm-hole seam with one of my wooden spoons (which has a pointed handle). The yarn was all stretched and broken, and I was furious. I knew my mother had done it but she wouldn’t admit it. Later I went back to get the sweater, and again there was a wooden spoon sticking out of the armhole seam. I was furious but I still couldn’t get my mother to admit doing this.’”
She held up the dream to the woman who submitted it. “This makes no sense to you?”
“No.”
She held it up to the audience as a whole. “Does it make sense to anyone?”
Smiles, then shaking of heads.
“I’ve barely looked at it, but I’ll say with complete confidence that this story makes sense. That’s where I have to begin or else I’ll just throw up my hands in despair.”
She studied the page briefly. “What is this story about, in a general way? That’s easy. It’s about unfinished business between a mother and daughter.” She looked at the writer. “The dream makes it clear that your mother has grievously injured you—has injured you to the very heart. That wooden spoon passes through the side of your sweater right to the place where your heart would be. But what really irks you is that she refuses to admit it. She pretends that all is well between you.”
The woman laughed. “That’s right. The last time I saw her I tried to face her with it, tried to tell her . . . She refused to listen, ended up by saying I needed a psychiatrist.”
“You had this dream after that?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay. This is a commentary on that episode.” She glanced at the dream again. “Here is what your dreaming self is telling you. ‘Don’t expect your mother to change. She’s never going to acknowledge what she did to you. On the contrary, if you let her, she’s going to keep on injuring you in the same way over and over again.’”
She looked up and smiled. “But that’s not all it’s saying. What’s important to note is that your mother has failed to reach your heart. Your heart is elsewhere—not in that sweater. Does that sweater have any particular significance?”
The woman thought for a moment. “I guess you could say so. It was part of a sweater-skirt outfit she bought for me when I went to college.”
Agnes Tillford nodded. “Okay. You’re not inside that sweater any more—you’re not a schoolgirl any more. In other words, your heart—your attachment—is somewhere else now, belongs to someone else.”
“That’s right!” the woman grinned.
“So your dreaming advisor is pointing out that the injury your mother did to you belongs to the past. She ruined the part of your life that sweater represents, but she can’t touch you now. It’s also saying you should leave that drawer closed, because every time you open it all you’re going to see is that damned spoon sticking out of your sweater. In other words, let it lie.”
She smiled. “One other sneaky little point. Whom do you stab with a wooden spoon?” She looked out expectantly to the audience. “Come on. A wooden spoon sharpened to a point at one end.”
Someone called out, “A vampire.”
“Exactly. A vampire. The source of the word vamp. Does your mother think of you as a vamp?”
The woman smiled. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she did.”
Agnes Tillford thought for a moment. I’m going to hazard a guess. Not entirely a guess. You were daddy’s darling. Daddy’s favorite.”
The woman smiled again. “That’s right. He was a photo-grapher and he took me everywhere with him. He must have taken a thousand pictures of me in my cute blonde curls.”
“Did he take a thousand pictures of your mother?”
“No.”
She nodded. “In this dream your dreaming self proposes a motive for your mother’s hostility. You vamped her husband and she was just plain jealous. She was afraid of you, and the only thing she could think of doing was to put a stake through your heart, as you would a vampire.”
Someone at the back began to applaud, and most of the audience, including Greg, joined in.
“Okay,” she said in acknowledgment, “but what I want you to see is not how clever I am but how easy it is. You simply have to let go of your preconception that dreams are incomprehensible. Can I have another one?”
The woman in front of Greg snatched her companion’s dream and marched it up to the podium. Tillford scanned it and asked the woman if it was her dream.
“My husband’s,” she answered.
“Okay.” Tillford studied it for a moment. “I see it’s actually two separate dreams. Did you have them the same night?”
“The same week,” the man said. “Couple days apart.”
She nodded. “Two real nifties. Here’s the first one: ‘A large, innocent white goose was forcing its head down onto an egg. One after the other, its eyes filled with blood and then it waddled off to die.’ And the second: ‘A little boy in white started off walking somewhere. An elderly Edward G. Robinson rushed right after him, knowing he was heading somewhere important. I came along behind. The boy climbed up the side of a cliff and onto an incredibly narrow ledge, and Robinson followed him with terrific enthusiasm. I wasn’t sure I could make it.’”
She looked up at the writer. “What made you connect the two?”
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I don’t know. I don’t usually remember my dreams. I mean, I remember them, but don’t pay any attention to them. These two, I don’t know . . . They seemed special.”
“I’d say they are.” She looked around the room. “Any ideas? Anything strike anyone?” Nobody moved. “Before the evening’s over I hope I’ll see some hands.”
She looked down at the sheet of paper. “A large, innocent white goose, an egg that’s painful to hatch, and a little boy setting off on a dangerous journey to an important but unknown destination. What’s this all about?” She looked at the writer. “May I have your name, sir?”
“Lewis. Everett Lewis.”
“Thank you. Now. What’s this large, innocent white goose? In general—at least as a first hypothesis—you have to assume that an obviously symbolic figure of this sort represents the dreamer himself. So, this is Mr. Lewis, who is depicted in the dream as large and innocent. And, of course, it’s the sleeping Mr. Lewis who’s doing the depicting here. In other words, this goose is Mr. Lewis’s image of himself. He sees himself as large—which is to say, mature—but still innocent. He sees that he’s all grown up, but he also feels he hasn’t actually begun to live. How am I doing so far, Mr. Lewis?”
Mr. Lewis smiled ironically. “You’re doing okay.”
“So what’s in the egg this goose is trying to break open? He says the goose was forcing its head down onto an egg. Any idea what’s in it?” She looked around. “Come on. Somebody think.”
A young man near the front raised a han
d. “A new Mr. Lewis?”
“Of course! It’s desperately important for a new Mr. Lewis to be broken out of that shell to begin a new life. If he can’t do it—and it’s obviously going to be very painful—then, as he sees it, he’s just going to waddle off to die. That’s it for dream one.”
A hand shot up. “What about the goose’s eyes filling with blood?”
She thought for a moment. “This is basically just reinforcement of the point. Bleeding from the eyes suggests tremendous internal pressure. He wants so desperately to liberate that new Mr. Lewis that he’s about to explode. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Now, dream two—the little boy in white. Who’s that?”
Half a dozen people raised their hands, and she nodded to one of them.
“That’s the new Mr. Lewis.”
“Of course. The new Mr. Lewis, freshly hatched and rarin’ to go. Full of zest and fearless. Exactly where he’s headed isn’t specified, but he’s clearly prepared for excitement and adventure. But the old Mr. Lewis is hanging back. He’s afraid to follow this child, afraid to trust his future to this child who has thrown caution to the winds. So what’s Edward G. Robinson doing in this dream?”
No one volunteered an answer to this question.
“Edward G. Robinson is one persona of a familiar figure in dreams—the Wise Old Man. Mr. Lewis's dreaming advisor is giving him some encouragement. It’s saying, in effect, ‘Look at this Wise Old Man. Edward G. Robinson is no fool; he’s a sophisticated and experienced man of the world. He knows this child can be trusted. He’s not hanging back and fretting about the hazards the child may be leading him into. Follow the example of this Wise Old Man and let the new you be your guide.’”
Mrs. Lewis raised her hand. “Can I add something?”
“Certainly.”
“My husband is an accountant with a pharmaceutical company here in Chicago. Has been for twenty-odd years. But he’s also a collector of antiques—and that’s where his heart is. What he really wants to do is take an early retirement and go into the antique business full time. But he’s so damned worried about providing for the future that he won’t do it. That’s all.”
Agnes Tillford nodded. “Mr. Lewis, your dreaming self advises you to take the plunge. It advises you to break out of your shell of comfort and security and to take the risks of an exciting new adventure.”
The applause this time was enthusiastic.
It took Greg half an hour to outwait the half dozen who stayed behind after the lecture. Finally the last one departed, and Ms. Tillford began gathering up her papers. When Greg joined her at the lectern, she looked up, nodded an acknowledgment of his presence, and went on packing her briefcase.
“Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” he asked. “Or a drink?”
She looked at him gravely. “You must have a good one.”
“A good dream?” He smiled. “Yeah. Maybe.”
She continued to study him. “A drink would be nice. If you mean someplace nearby.”
Greg thought briefly. “How about the Blackhawk?”
She nodded and closed her briefcase. “So what did you think?” she asked as they made their way out to the street.
“About the lecture? I guess I have to say I don’t believe it.”
“You don’t believe what?”
“That what you do with dreams is teachable. I think you have a genuine knack. Nontransferable.”
She shrugged. “I agree I have a knack, but I’ve managed to teach it to a few people. Not in an hour, of course.”
“My name is Greg Donner, by the way. I forgot to introduce myself.”
“I noticed,” she said without emphasis.
“And what do I call you over drinks? Ms. Tillford?”
“Mrs. Tillford. Widow Tillford. Actually, people who take me out for drinks call me Agnes.”
Greg smiled. “I picked you for unmarried.”
“Thanks. I was married for twenty years.”
“Any kids?”
“Three. One grandchild so far.”
“I picked you for childless, of course.” He held the door of the Blackhawk for her.
“Some judge of character you are,” she remarked dryly.
Seated and with drinks in front of them, Agnes asked him what he did for a living and he told her. She asked him what kind of writing he did.
“Any kind anyone wants to pay me for. I’m strictly a hack.”
She grunted. “I’ve done enough to know that any kind of writing is creative writing.”
“I won’t argue with that.”
She looked around the room, which was handsome, dim, and spacious. “Do you have any fans?”
“Me? No.”
“I do,” she said glumly. “Fans are so boring.” Greg felt she was trying to tell him something, but he wasn’t sure what it was. He asked her if she made a living out of her books and lectures.
“God, no,” she replied. “If I had to make a living out of it, it wouldn’t be any fun.” She looked up at him. “So what is this dream of yours?”
He shrugged. “There’s no hurry about that. Believe it or not, I didn’t ask you out just to listen to a dream.”
She raised her brows. “You’re after my body?”
Greg gave her a crooked grin. “You women. All you think about is sex.”
They chatted through a couple more rounds of drinks, and he learned that, in her day, Agnes had been a hardhead, a hell-raiser, and a women’s liberationist long before it became a movement; when it became fashionable she lost interest.
“Well,” she said at last. “We’ve established that we enjoy each other’s company. Now I really would like to hear this dream of yours.”
So Greg told her. The whole thing.
“Very interesting, if you’ll pardon the expression,” she said when he was finished. “And you’re sure you actually dreamed these things on successive nights?”
“Absolutely. I wrote them down.”
She shrugged. “I’ve never heard anything quite like it. Not that it matters in particular. The repetition is just a way of fixing the dream in your mind, of drawing attention to it. The dream itself isn’t particularly mysterious.”
“It isn’t?”
“Didn’t you just hear my lecture, for God’s sake?”
Greg laughed and told her to go on.
“Okay. The dream begins with an awakening. An awakening to what? To the fact that you’re locked up in a lawyer’s office. What does that suggest?”
“Nothing, to me.”
“Chah. You’re not thinking. You hire a lawyer to oversee your actions, to restrain you from doing wrong—in short, to act as a sort of conscience.”
“True.”
“So, in your dream, you awaken to find yourself locked into a life ruled by caution. You’re a good boy. You do what your lawyer—the lawyer inside you—tells you to do. You’re always careful to do what’s proper and right.”
“True enough.”
“Okay. You’d like to get yourself out of that situation, but finding the key means getting your hands dirty.” Greg laughed.
“So you wake up to a choice. Stay or go. Stay or go. Green and red lights flash your choices on the ceiling.”
“Right. Very good.”
“So, in your dream, you release yourself from this barren prison. And as soon as you get down to the street, you’re faced with another choice—right or left. In the language of dreams, turning left can mean a turn toward the passive, spiritual side—or toward the dark side, the wicked side. This doesn’t feel like the direction you should take. Home is toward the right—toward a more active and positive involvement with life.”
He smiled and nodded.
“Okay. Ultimately, what’re you looking for in this empty, lonely city? A woman, of course. A woman alone as you’re alone. You can protect each other from your loneliness. However . . . a menacing figure is following you and threatens to overwhelm you. And who or what do you suppose that
is?”
“I don’t know.”
“That, dear boy, is your terribly guilty conscience.”
“Oh.”
“Do you have some reason to feel guilty about looking for a woman to love in this city?”
Greg made a face. “ I guess I do.” He told her about Karen.
“Well, there you have it then. The lawyer in you—what the psychoanalysts would call your superego—says that, because Karen is in love with you, you should lock yourself in your room and be faithful to her. But you want to be involved with a woman you’re in love with. Your dreaming advisor is warning you that a lot of guilt is going to follow such an involvement.”
“I see that. But what about the old man in the storefront?”
“Ah. You met him in another guise earlier this evening. This is the Wise Old Man.”
“He didn’t seem wise. Why wouldn’t he let us in?”
“’Cause he was wise. He knew you were in no real danger.”
“What about that coin he gave me?”
Agnes smiled. “That’s a nice touch. I assume you recognize the boatman on the coin.”
“Yes. That’s Charon, who ferries the dead across the river Styx to Hades.”
“And what do you read in this?”
“I took it to be a warning. The old man was trying to warn me about something.”
Agnes shook her head and stared into her drink for a few moments. “Suppose someone handed you a card with a picture on the front showing God seated on his throne, surrounded by choirs of angels and ecstatic throngs of saints. And suppose on the back was printed, ‘Admit One.’ What would you call that?”
“What do you mean?”
‘“Admit One.’ Think about it. Suppose someone in real life handed you a ticket to heaven that said ‘Admit One.’ What would you call that?”
“I’d call it a joke. Something you’d pick up in a trick shop.”