In the first part, Amos and I are at home (interestingly, in my dream, it’s never a home we've actually ever lived in) and we have a new baby. The gender and name are rarely known and the baby often looks different in different versions of the dream. Anyway, we have this new baby, and we have nothing for it. No clothes, no bed, no diapers, no blankets, no obvious sources for food. Nothing. And in the dream, I am very anxious and flustered because we have this baby, but aren't prepared in any way for its existence. In the dream, I am always angry with myself and think, "How could I be unprepared for this?! How could this baby have taken me by surprise? I should have my shit together. I have been preparing and wanting a baby for as long as I remember! How is it possible that I have been blind-sided by this little one's arrival?" In some versions of the dream, I scrounge around the house and come up with make shift solutions, like wrapping the baby in an old shirt. In other versions, I rush out and buy everything I need. One such version had me going to Baby's R Us with my Aunt Janet to buy baby gear and walking in and finding the store to be like a hybrid of Ikea and Costco on crack, with mile high shelves, everything disassembled in boxes, and like a maze. The seemingly simple task of searching for a receiving blanket turns into an overwhelming, insurmountable task. Whichever the version, my waking life resourcefulness and baby knowledge is completely absent and I am left feeling exasperated and frantic.
In the second part of the dream, Amos and I decide to go out for the night. The dream then continues as we maneuver through some social situation, usually a party of some sort. Towards the end of the night, as in hours later, I realize, "Oh shit! We forgot about the baby! We've left it at home by itself for the whole night!" I then rush home to find the baby in various stages of survival. Sometimes, the baby is happy as a newborn clam. In other versions, not so much. In one particularly dark version of the dream (the same version that had the Babies R Us trip), I find the baby in an antique cradle, covered in brush and cobwebs, long since dead. Disturbing, I know.
So what does this all mean?!!!! Well, I initially interpreted the dream as meaning that I have taken all of my life-long baby preparation for granted and there are just some aspects of having a baby that one can never truly prepare for. So this is my subconscious way of warning myself of two things: 1) You can never be too
During the period of my life when I was having this dream with some amount of regularity, I was really trying to convince Amos that NOW (as in then) was the perfect and ideal time to have a baby and that we could do it! And that we would be prepared! Consciously, my mind was filled with all the "rational" reasons and proof as to why these reasons were true and I truly, truly believed them all. In my waking life, I allowed myself no room for doubt and questioning, as to my own preparedness for a baby, convinced that I AM READY. But apparently, my subconscious felt otherwise.
After the particularly intense and dark version of the dream (Babies R Us and cobwebs), I mentioned the dreams to my mom. And of course, Dr. Karen "Carl Jung" Graves, had a very interesting interpretive twist to the dreams. As she put it, “If you are every person in the dream, then you are the baby.” And what does it mean now that the baby is unexpectedly without care and nourishment? Whoa. WHOA. So I am the baby. And perhaps it’s not that I subconsciously fear not being ready for my baby and worried about how I will take care of her/him, but rather I am not prepared to take care of my inner baby and worried that I will abandon myself, or some part of myself -my child self, myself as an individual, who knows? Crazy stuff, right?
But I think these dreams are on to something that perhaps every person faces, in varying degrees, if prepared and 2) No matter how much you prepare it won't be enough. they transition into parenthood. What will become of the person I am, or once was? Who will take care of me when I and my partner now have to devote so much time to this little baby? I have heard some parents speak of this automatic selflessness that accompanies parenthood, of some seamless transition from primary concern for the self, to concern for others. But does this really happen so seamlessly, or do people just tell themselves this because it’s the appropriate thing to say? Or perhaps they are afraid of acknowledging their own need for autonomy for fear of feeling selfish or uncaring. Or perhaps it doeas really happen that easily.
Now I find myself in this weird period where the baby is a real part of my life, insofar as I am pregnant and have heard the heartbeat and have begun a registry, but also still live a life where, in the greatest sense of reality, I am still on my own and unattached from this child (okay, okay, so I guess we are literally attached, but you know what I mean), able to make most decisions about my daily life without thinking too much about him/her. So on one hand, I can more realistically plan and conceptualize having a baby in our lives in the near future, but on the other hand, I also have the luxury of, nearly always, choosing my own needs over that of a child. So, I am trying to take this weird limbo state and apply careful foresight into how I hope I will balance this self-other dichotomy when the time comes. I look to the future now and firmly want to always be able to carve out time for myself. I look to the time after we have children and say to myself, as well as to Amos, that I will always make our relationship and marriage a top priority. I will always make sure we have time where it’s just him and me. Where we spend time together in a childless vacuum, where we can revert back to the space where only we existed. This I want for our future. But perhaps, as my dreams may predict, I can't be fully prepared, for anything. And all I can do is hope that I and we (Amos and I, together), are able to make it a constant priority to work on finding that balance and that we can also find grace and forgiveness in ourselves and each other when we don't always succeed.
Interestingly, I have only had this dream once since I have been pregnant. And in the dream, we only were without material items for the baby. Also, we didn't go out for the night and forget the baby. So what does this tell me? Or better yet, what does it tell you? That y'all better clear out our registry and stock our house with onesies and carseats, because, God forbid I have to make a trip to Babies R Us. Who knows if I'll survive?
For good measure, here's a reminder of Us:
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