I opened my eyes and was startled to see that the two kind women at a charity house in Columbus, Ohio who had admitted me with my down syndrome child in arms were not still sitting there with me. Instead I was in bed, where I’d retired with an extra blanket during the afternoon  because I was cold. The clock across the room said it was 7:30 and I feared I’d missed my meds yesterday, but upon studying the light seeping in behind my  blinds I decided that I had woken in the late afternoon, not the next morning.  Just before I had opened my eyes my infant daughter, who had not seemed to be stirring in my arms, responded to my addressing her. I helped her to sit up and see the two women.  I told her to see, that they were like the people she had been interacting with earlier in the opera house/hotel. She had been sleeping after my long ordeal of losing things at the performance in the crowd and searching for them.

After I awoke I went to my computer to record the dream and found a comment from Petru saying she takes dreams seriously.  I feared losing much of this dream and the following will be out of order. (I have a loosely held notion that when we dream we dream different parts of the ongoing dream in our separate hemispheres, and that’s why our  dreams often sort of merge into each other.  (My notion runs counter to scientific facts, however.)

Parts of the dream:  I took my downs daughter with me to Columbus, Ohio. I intended to photograph scenes from a university sports event for my school paper.  I was in a restaurant practicing with the camera, and a couple of good-natured folks cooperated in posing for me.  I spent that night in a hotel which was familiar from earlier dreams. With my downs daughtger in arms I entered an opera house which was part of the hotel. It was crowded but I found a seat next to friendly folks. We were entertained by pre-performance shenanigns onstage, until 10 pm, at which time it was rumored the show was being delayed, possibly because the main performer hadn’t shown up yet.  We waited and waited. Then it was rumored the show would resume at 1 a.m.  I hadn’t told folks at home I was going to Columbus, and couldn’t wait until 1 a.m. to see the rest of the show.  Sometime in that interim I discovered I had lost several bundles I had been carrying–a plastic baby seat, my purse, my camera.  Somehow it was after the show which I had not witnessed and I applied to the formerly friendly owner for their Lost and Found.  I was told they had no lost and found. Reentering the auditorium I had that verified. Everything was put directly in garbage bags.  I personally went through the garbage many staff had bagged to no avail.  Then I overhear that the garbage had not been picked up yet and go  outside the building, where a gigantic garbage lay in a side street, awaiting pickup.

I rummage through the entire bag with no results. At one point I pause at the entrance of the hotel and a staff member looks at me and tells me not to enter. I figure I look too disreputable. After I finish searching the humongous garbage bag  I begin looking through smaller bags of garbage and note that the big bag has already been picked up.  In my search I briefly speak with a passing bus driver or two about the situation.  I remain to search through smaller garbage bags which surface outside the building, and talk to  two female housekeepers of the hotel.  In the meantime I have found a cheap unopened camera that probably doesn’t work, a one dollar bill and something else similar but not re-usable.  I share my predicament with one of the servants who know or live near my hometown. A medical concern of mine is discussed  it seems my daughter and I may have experienced a similar disease. I may have recovered from mine. The reputation of the staff at a hospital where I know a doctor as a slight friend is negatively discussed by the servants.  One of the servants refers me to a charity home in the area.  I find it, ring the bell and am admitted by a woman who resembled a nun. She listens and another joins us and I open my eyes suddenly, startled not to see them sitting there.

Oh yes, not long before I awoke I find an oblong cake sealed in plastic wrap that I consider eating. I had been warned about getting poisoned from eating discarded old food, but I am  tempted because the chocolate frosting still seems soft, not hardened.  I don’t recall that I tasted it.   Upon reflection after I awoke I was thankful that I had not missed my meds that night.

RESIDUES OF THE DAY occur to me: I  have been wanting to do a short series called Auld Lang Syne, with tid bits from my many old fat VCR  tapes.  I have been writing about a transgender woman conflicted about coming out, and she is a journalist and graduate student;  reading a novel which includes 2 servants, one of whom turns out to be the murderer; reflecting on my lifelong ignorance of the music scene;  noting my daughter’s thrill at being invited from her state residence to our home to spend one night  (I had been taking her out to Sunday lunch every week until I totaled my car). I fear that she may be entering early dementia (not unusual for folks with downs), and my problem with word-finding when writing concerns me.  I have also recently discovered the pleasure of cooking and eating those plastic-wrapped sweet potatoes. I awoke to no knocks or ringing noises, just suddenly opened my eyes from my dream to an experience of surprise they were not there.

THOUGHTS about the dream:  Old continuing  feelings of inadequacy–no change. Unhealthy continuing desire/indulgence in sweets (unhealhy, fattening)  resulting from lack of willpower. Unresolved guilt about my daughter. Conflict about sexual hunger. I expect others to take care of my ineptitude (having a lost and found for me)–seeking help from the charity may reflect a continuation of this theme.  Searching through garbage may reflect my view of myself.  A relatively new or renewed element in the dream?  The spiritual element in seeing one of the charity workers as a nun.  My inner self helper  has spirit; my Waking Witness may care.