Oprah Closes Shop – It's The End of the World

For some reason I am in Oprah's office. Oprah has decided to close shop. She is very grateful when I suggest that everybody pitch in to help her distribute the items that she is giving away. But she is also very sad and she recognizes that I empathize. This phase of Oprah's life is not only the end of Oprah's world, but also the end of mine and others as well.

After I walk through the offices, I meet a woman in the stairwell. I am now holding a baby and I feel very responsible for this baby. I don't know who this woman is who has befriended me, but something about her seems suspicious. Another woman grabs me to tell me something about this woman in relation to my three youngest children. I listen intently to the woman who grabbed me, when suddenly, before she can tell me anything, a shot rings out and the woman who befriended me, rifle in hand, shoots the woman who was about to tell me something about her.

My fears are confirmed. This woman is not only distrustful, but also evil. Now I'm running with the baby, and I eventually go home, thinking I will be safe there. But others with guns drive me and the baby out. We seek solace by traveling, but at some point I return home, hoping everything has returned to some form of normalcy. My home, however, is inhabited by several other people who tell me we must all leave now because the revolutionists are coming. I run outside. The people who have taken over my home hide behind the shed. The baby says, "I'm hungry." I didn't even know she could talk. 

I feel fortunate that I must have given the baby to the group hiding behind the shed when one revolutionist rounds the corner of the house. I stand frozen in fear, not realizing that the sun is coming up and I am no longer in shadow. He or she points the gun at me and the dream ends.

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Over my lifetime, I have had numerous dreams about the end of the world. I've also had numerous dreams about Oprah. I've been at Oprah's house, I've been in Oprah's office, and I've been at a party with Oprah – all in my dreams. In my end-of-the-world dreams, I am usually trying to help everyone escape disaster or I'm trying to give everybody hope. Not until this dream did I have Oprah and the end of the world in the same dream.

I had heard that Oprah was disappointed about her OWN network not doing as well as she expected. I remember thinking before I went to bed last night that if Oprah offered her network online or to cable subscribers who could afford only basic cable, she might find a much wider audience. So maybe in the dream where I'm helping her distribute items, what I'm actually helping her do is distribute her network across a much wider audience.

Closing shop and ending a world are related possibly because when Oprah ended her show, it ended an era of my life as well. My children grew up and moved out of the house during the Oprah years.

The baby might represent me and all the years I felt lost. I ran around aimlessly as I hoped to "find myself" and protect myself from distrustful demons. But rather than stand alone to fight the demons and get shot or killed in the process, I should probably have banded together with others who knew how to protect themselves from assailants and evil. And like the baby in the dream, I should have spoken out and said exactly what I really wanted to say. 

So maybe it's time to get out from behind the shadow and stop using it as a cover. It's time to speak my mind without fear of getting shot for doing so.

Photo attribution: 

greginhollywood at http://flickr.com/photos/35735432@N07/5334041943

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To Dream The Impossible Dream

At a counter in an airport, I was sitting next to Dr. Phil. We were writing out birthday cards. I don't know who my recipient was, but Dr. Phil was writing his for a daughter from a previous marriage. 

Prior to the airport, I was sitting in a cafe by myself and I noticed a writer who had written a book I wanted to read. She was sitting with a couple of guys I'd never met. I must have left the cafe, but soon I was back with the book and when the people who had been sitting with the writer noticed my book, they invited me to join them at their table. I told them I had purchased it for research, but in reality I just wanted to join them and I was hoping they would notice the book and start talking to me. The girl who wrote it joined us and we clicked right away.

One of the guys who was sitting with us was paying a lot of attention to me and I was very attracted to him. Soon he and I were together while I joined my middle daughter in a gigantic elevator that would take us to our plane. But on our way to the elevator I ran into my former mother-in-law who looked suspiciously at the young man who respectfully backed away when he discovered who she was. I said my good-byes to her and climbed into the elevator.

People were shivering so I grabbed a straw that was so big it went from my mouth to the ground, and so wide I could have slipped a water glass through it. Somehow, though, it fit in my mouth effortlessly and I placed one end of it at the bottom of one of the ice-filled barrels and blew. Suddenly steam arose from the barrels slowly melting the ice and warming the elevator.

After walking through the airport, I am sitting at the counter next to Dr. Phil. When I look behind me I notice Oprah sitting in a wheelchair. She is shaking. I wonder if she has fallen or if she has become ill. I decide to let her know that she helped me through a lot of years while I was raising my children. She looks at me with a pleading, "Please don't approach me look," but I decide to be quick and not bother her other than to thank her.

After I thanked her, she got up and walked, albeit wobbly, with a friend.

Now it was time to board the plane. The Marines who were with us, had to leave us to board a different plane. When they left I realized that my daughter and I didn't have boarding passes. 

My daughter went to get hers and I thought she was getting mine too until I saw her sitting on the plane. So I took the shortest route, which was through some locked gates and across a bridge, but after attempting to cross the bridge and realizing the gates rose only so high because the massive locks prevented them from opening wider, I had to find another way to get my boarding pass.

There the dream ended.

So what's so impossible about this dream? First of all, Dr. Phil doesn't have a daughter from a previous marriage. Secondly, I would never date a man as young as the man in this dream, although in my defense, I didn't know how old he was :) Thirdly, I don't think I would buy another person's book solely to sit at a table with the author. 

Blowing air into the bottom of an ice-filled barrel would not create warmth and yes, I get the phallic symbol reference and the "bottom of the barrel" reference, but since nothing else in the dream was sexual I doubt this one had anything to do with sex, although the quality (bottom of the barrel) of the elevator was very poor. The dream probably had more to do with helping people – letting the author know I enjoyed her book – letting Oprah know she helped me – feeling empathy for my former mother-in-law.

I have reached a point in my life where I feel the need to "give back." The only way I can do that, however, is by crocheting hats for cancer patients. I don't send greeting cards, however (find out why HERE), and Oprah is not in a wheelchair. And finally, my daughter would never leave me at an airport without a boarding pass.

Occasionally I have dreams like this, and when I try to understand the reason for having this dream, I determine that the dream is trying to tell me that if most of what appears in the dream is untrue, likely everything else in the dream is untrue. I might be nervous or upset about an upcoming event and these types of dreams are either warning me to be prepared or letting me know I have nothing to worry about.

Prior to having this dream I had lost my driver's license. I was hoping I wouldn't forget to get a replacement because I would be visiting my son in Virginia and I would need a valid driver's license to get on base. The drive will be somewhat stressful with 6 kids in tow for 14 hours, but the reason for the trip is so that my son's sister, I, and 6 of my grandkids (three of whom are my son's), will be present for the pinning ceremony when my son becomes a Staff Sergeant as a United States Marine.

One take-away from this dream is that some obstacles truly are impossible to overcome. You just have to find another way around them, through them, or over them.