This is a dream I had a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if this is the best place to post it but I feel it is about the covid-19 and society...some parts of it may be referring to my own feelings about this time...
I am one of many mental patients in the mental health wing of a large hospital. We sit around and comfort each other like a family. We care for each other and try to keep abreast of the news about an illness that started appearing in different parts of the hospital. One person says there is a rumor of someone coming out of surgery and then coming down with the “illness”. I see an image in the dream like I am imagining an obese patient coming out of surgery and swelling up and looking stiff and large. The person seems helpless after surgery. The image reminds me later when I am awake of the picture of the patient in the game “Operation” which I played as a child.
https://board-games-galore.fandom.com/wiki/Operation
Despite knowing this is a mental wing of the hospital I feel like we are normal people who are just trying to survive difficult times as we comfort each other and help each other. I sit in a large lounge-type room with a nice older woman and she remarks how small and old the TVs are. I look at two different corners of the room and one corner has a small flat screen TV and the other corner has a tiny block style TV or cathode ray television.
I meet a man with a small child and decide to go out of the hospital with him and help him shop for food. We go to a small grocery store and head back to the hospital. We enter a large meeting room with a very large rectangular table which I think maybe was 2-3 rectangular tables lined up end to end with chairs all around. On the far wall is a large big flat screen TV playing the news. There are many concerned faces on the people already there watching. I try to find a chair to sit on and the one I grab has no legs, so I end up sitting almost on the floor and I feel very uncomfortable and weird because everyone else has a chair with legs. I wake up.
I still don’t have a clue what a lot of this dream means but I am pretty sure it is about Covid-19. The overall theme to the dream to me was people being kind to each other as they try to get through these difficult times. Only by being kind could they find comfort in each other and imagine that someday things would be better. Everyone helping someone and smiling at someone--even making polite conversation when there wasn’t much to discuss that was very pleasant. It felt sort of surreal to me later after I woke up to know the wing I was in was for the “mentally imbalanced” people, yet we were so considerate, kind and cohesive as a group…we we no longer the “norm” we were unusual. This suggests that the “normal” people in the world during these strange times of Covid-19 may be unkind, non-cohesive and inconsiderate…
I felt uncomfortable in the end of the dream sitting on the chair with no legs. Maybe this is a metaphor for something in my personal life, maybe it represents something else in general. I am not sure what it means. I seemed to be on the floor with the dirt. It was weird. I was under the table and felt a little lost. I couldn’t see the TV screen. I haven’t figured this part out. Yet when I woke up the overall feeling was good, because the people in the dream were so kind to each other. Perhaps it means watching too much news or internet videos about Coronavirus could be uncomfortable and leave a person feeling lost? Or maybe I personally feel a little lost watching the pandemic play out in the media, seeing all the unkindness in the world?
Bless you for thinking about all teachers as well as being a light for all our children.
I LOVE your name for Betsy. It is perfect actually.
We really know little about this virus right now. Even our younger people who have had the virus aren't out of the woods for issues popping up in their later life.
Remote learning isn't great, but I think we need to ut it on the table front and center, especially for states with rising Covid rates. SO many people are asymptomatic and super spreaders.
I just realized after posting this dream that the game "Operation" probably represents all the different treatments that doctors are trying in desperation to save the patients. In the game there are many different "operations" or parts to remove from the body of the fictional patient. It is a pretty good metaphor, don't you think? They have to struggle and guess which treatment is best for each patient to save their lives and yet the patients often still die.
Yes it is a great metaphor. Also, many patients have different issues that present in different areas of the body. Similar to the "operation" game patient. Thank you for sharing the dream. I wonder if the chair has anything too do with lack of support?
Thank you for sharing your dream. Very interesting. I agree with @lovendures that maybe the chair has something to do with lack of support. I kept thinking "getting the legs knocked out from under you" when you described that part. So maybe something that happens to further undercut something?
I totally agree about the virus and how little we know. More comes out everyday about different affects long-term.
@honeybee - I have kids and we have also referred to Betsy as Umbridge (kindred spirits, we are, I think!) :) I was also really worked up yesterday after seeing/reading about what the administration said about school. It is unconscionable to have her saying schools must open up, full-time, no matter what, and Pence literally saying we shouldn't listen to the CDC (during a pandemic!) about how to open schools. I am also, fortunately, in a state where I know the governor is looking out for us (Michigan) and am confident she will make the hard decisions about school, if needed.
Thanks Lovendures and CC21 for the suggestion of the meaning for the chair with no legs being "lack of support"...I will have to think on that for a bit.
As an aside, it find it interesting that the webpage I linked to says that in 2004 a new ailment was added to the game as a plastic part to remove. It is listed as Brain Freeze: an ice-cream cone located in the brain ($600). Refers to the experience of "brain freeze", a headache felt after eating frozen desserts and iced drinks too quickly. Now we learn that covid-19 patients can have neurological issues and brain damage as well as all the other problems.
@lovendures to all those in the education field I would just like to send my love, prayers and support to all. This pandemic reveals what truly is essential. Why don’t we support them more, I have no idea. I hope things change and they get the support they need. Doing so would benefit the students also. It’s so sad and frightening to see what’s happening.
I realize this post isn’t about covid but with schools being front and center right now it’s a cause for concern. I have two college aged kids and things are changing weekly. I have so much respect for their professors because they are losing their faculty members, enduring pay cuts, but still provided the very best they could trying to get the kids through the semester in this new way of teaching. All within a few weeks They have my respect. They put the needs of their students first. That’s dedication.
Just raising my hand. I was a teacher too. My mother was a teacher. My grandmother was a teacher (fun side note - when I was in H.S. the principal of the school had been a student of my grandmother's!).
1. Taught in a high end private elementary school in Manhattan.
2. Head classroom teacher in elementary public schools in the Bronx. This included the "crack epidemic kids."
3. As a speech pathologist, started my career in a semi-private school (a UCP) that was entirely for special needs kids of all types (from mild physical challenges all the way through to non-verbal and psychotic).
4. Continued in that career working in early intervention - going to homes to teach kids and their families individually.
My education career covered a wide range of experiences, before I switched over to the healthcare side of things, which suited me better. The education system in this country has been under attack for years, but accelerated in the 80s.
I woke up this morning with that one word on my mind again: GENOCIDE.
Genocide - it's not just for the elderly anymore. Cruella deVos and the Regime are contributing to this genocide by leveraging federal funds against the states. I believe [again] this is all part of the plan - which is to say they didn't plan the pandemic but how convenient.
This virus is being utilized to cull the herd. Part of it is Gaia herself saying "enough", but in the US I believe a big part of it is shrinking the population without having to spend too much money. Bullets, bombs and deploying the National Guard cost money that could otherwise be used to keep lining the pockets of the autocratic oligarchy. With a bonus for the cryptofascists in that the right-wing "Christians" are adhering to a very twisted version of their belief system because they think they will magically benefit from "the end of the world".
This virus is being utilized to cull the herd. Part of it is Gaia herself saying "enough", but in the US I believe a big part of it is shrinking the population without having to spend too much money. Bullets, bombs and deploying the National Guard cost money that could otherwise be used to keep lining the pockets of the autocratic oligarchy. With a bonus for the cryptofascists in that the right-wing "Christians" are adhering to a very twisted version of their belief system because they think they will magically benefit from "the end of the world".
Yep. I'd love to know how much they're going to end up saving in Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security alone. And that money will go right back into their own pockets.
@starpath It feels like we are all living in a mental institution, but it's the crazy people that are running it. To me it's more like living in Hotel California, we're checked in but we can never leave now that nations have put out the US Not Welcome Here signs. I understand how you feel about this being genocide. It is. It's by passive means, but it's still genocide for politico-religious purposes. I can't believe I wrote that and it's not part of a dystopian science fiction story!
One vision during meditation gives me a little hope. I saw the White House, the Capitol Building and the National Mall shrouded in deep swirling grey fog and dead vegetation, then the sun came up and did a big burst of white, glittery energy. When the light dispersed the fog, there was beautiful vegetation, the White House and the Capitol Building looked bright and clean and I could hear birds singing and bells ringing and children laughing.
I think we'll get through this. I hope it's soon!