Sunday, August 08, 2004

Analyze This: The Shower

Put on your psychiatrist hats, boys and girls... It's time to figure out the inner workings of a Caffeinated Mind with a new feature I call Analyze This. I'm going to describe for you one of my recent dreams, then let you offer your deepest insights into the meaning (or meaninglessness) of said dream. Are you ready? Too bad, here we go anyway...

As with most of my dreams, this one seemed to start off in the middle of the story instead of the beginning. I found myself in my house, but not my house... You know, it's not the house I live in, nor one I have ever lived in, but in the dream it was my house. For some reason, there were lots of people there, too... Mostly family, but a few strangers as well. It felt as though all these people were visiting us ("us" being my immediate family, you understand). It was about mid-morning and I knew that I would have to rush if I wanted to beat everyone to the shower. So, grabbing a towel that I knew was too small, I made a dash for the bathroom.

Now, here is where it gets weird... As I undressed for the shower, I noticed my face laying on the counter. My face! There it was, eyes open, just staring at the bathroom ceiling! I wasn't the least bit alarmed, however... I simply looked at it, noticed a pimple on one cheek, and wondered if I should get rid of it now, or once I put my face back on. It was like seeing my watch on the counter and wondering if I should set it now, or after I put it on. But did I mention it was my face?!?

Without a second thought for my face, I turned to the shower. I pulled back the sliding glass door and reached in to turn on the water. That was when I noticed a problem... The walls of the shower were covered with what looked like thousands of hairs. Now, finding a hair or two stuck to the shower wall isn't that uncommon... But thousands? And these hairs were moving! I decided they must be bugs and proceeded to rinse them off the walls and down the drain.

Once the walls were hair/bug-free, I figured it would be a good idea to scrub the walls, just to make sure there wouldn't be a re-infestation. So, I got to work with a sponge and some of that gritty cleanser. It was about this time that I noticed another person in the bathroom, scrubbing along right beside me. I can't say for sure who it was, but it may have been Roseanne (Roseanne Barr, Roseanne Arnold, Just Roseanne...). Anyway, she just kept scrubbing away without saying a word to me, so I did likewise.

As I began wiping down the back wall of the shower, I noticed that there was a small gap between it and the wall of the bathroom. The longer I looked at this gap, the larger it became. Soon, I could see that the shower was actually built inside an old abandoned jacuzzi. There were even a few children's swim toys laying around and a small ladder for getting in and out of the hot tub. It was at this time that my girlfriend came walking out from behind the shower to stand beside me. I pointed out that our shower was actually built inside a jacuzzi, just in case she didn't notice as she walked through it. She just shrugged as if to say, "Yeah, I know." I told her that I thought we should just tear out the shower and renovate the hot tub, to which she laughed. Apparently, it had been decided long ago that this plan was a waste of time and money. I was disappointed until I remembered another jacuzzi elsewhere in the house that wasn't being used.

Now, I have to interrupt the dream here to explain that I dream of this "second jacuzzi" a lot. Usually, it is part of a very fancy bathroom just off a fern-lined, glass-enclosed mezzanine in a part of my house I seldom go to. Not that I have a place like that in my real house, mind you, but it exists in almost every home I occupy in my dreams.

In this dream, the fancy bathroom was run down and out of service, but I couldn't see a reason to leave it like that. We could have our Shower-in-a-Jacuzzi and a jacuzzi too! What a wonderful idea!

And that's when I woke up.

Now, I have a few theories about the meanings behind some parts of this dream, but I'd like to hear what you think. So... Analyze This!

No comments: