Amxious dreaming

I woke this morning with a dream still strong in my consciousness. In an airport and rushing to the gate, feeling anxious about being late. Sure enough, when I got there, the gate captain said the plane was loading at 3pm and it was already 3:15. Too late. My heart sunk as I realized that the next plane didn’t leave until 5pm and I didn’t know if I could get where I was going when I needed to be there.

A dream like this is fairly common, I am sure, so I got out all my dream book and tried to find the easy interpretation, the one where I didn’t have to do all the dream work that is required for a real interpretation, aka journaling the dream, identifying the characters and the symbols, processing what the symbols mean to me. After all, it’s Wednesday and I have to go to work, and I’m feeling all squirrelly because of this dream. Anxious.

So I look it up in the old Betty Bethard’s quickie dream dictionary and find out that an airplane, much like a stairway, suggests going to a higher ‘plane’, a higher spiritual place, and I see that I am missing that right now, not going there. OK, I can see this. I have been focused on work and house remodeling and of course, on the coming possible changes at work, in my job, in what is required of me here and what may be required of me in the next few month. Hmmm

Then finally taking the easy way out. Google the “missed airplane” and what comes up but this:

To dream that you are late, denotes your fear of change and your ambivalence about seizing an opportunity. You may feel unready, unworthy, or unsupported in your current circumstances. Additionally, you may be overwhelmed or conflicted with decisions about your future. You feel time is running out and that you do not have time to accomplish all the things you want.

Ahh, perfect. Resonance. I feel this one clearly, and see also how the other dreams I have had lately about my old flower business, of not being ready and not having anything ready to sell reflect this same fear and ambivalence about the change I may make fairly soon. My subconscious telling me that this may not be easy, that there may be some problems that I am not aware of, some difficulties associated with jumping off one more time into something new. One more time.

So later, after thinking a bit, I did some more internet searching and found this:


Description: You are rushing to catch a bus, train, ship, airplane or other public transport, only to miss it, usually by a fraction of a second. The dream may involve various misadventures en route to the transport. You often feel frustrated rather than afraid in these dreams. You may be lacking vital papers, such as tickets, passport or visa. In a variation of this theme, you arrive too late for a performance in which you are supposed to participate and find that the play, musical production, sports competition or other event has already begun. (Dreams in which you are having trouble during a performance are classified with "I fail on a test or perform poorly.")
Frequency: Missing the boat dreams are moderately common. Some people have them often, others rarely. They usually arise when you feel anxious about making an important connection to one of your waking goals.
Usual meanings: You feel you've missed some opportunity in your waking life; you're too late; you can't make a connection, that you need to pull yourself together to make the connections you desire.
Where are you going in your dream?
Why are you going there?
What is it that makes you feel you are "too late" or that you don't have what you need to take your part on the stage of life? If missing documents variation:
What are you currently trying to accomplish in your waking life?
What's missing for you to do your job properly or to get what you want?
How can you better prepare yourself for what you want to do

So now, instead of worrying, I’ll take the message of my dream world, answer the questions, and do the work. My dreams are here to help me, to wake me up, no pun intended, to make me pay attention.
I am not really sure where I am going, except I hope to be going back to Oregon because I want to be closer to my kids and I want to be back in a place that feels like home.
Why I feel I am too late? Maybe because I didn’t try to do it last September the first time I had the chance, or maybe because it’s too late in my career for these kinds of jumping moves. I’m feeling anxious about the shift, the change and that I may actually miss the opportunity. Ahh well, I guess I’ll wait to see what the dreaming self has to tell me now that I have come this far with it all.