The naked therapist

I find myself writing mostly about my dreams. It's believed that if one pays attention to ones dreams, one begins to remember them more frequently. This could be the case with me, as I've been recalling my dreams regularly. And they've been rather interesting. 

Yesterday (October24), I dreamt I was having a therapy session with a talented professional lady who in real life is an artist and long-term case who consulted me on and off over a period of years.  The session was normal except that I was completely naked. We may have been talking about vulnerability, an important subject in my therapeutic approach. During the session I noticed a door to the outside was open so I got up to close it. At the end of the session, I got dressed. Ww both behaved as if this were perfectly normal and ok. A couple (not people from my real life) was waiting to see me. I needed to use the restroom so I went out into a hall and entered a mens room. If I'm remembering correctly, this was the dream where all the urinals on both sides of the room were occupied. Finally, a boy vacated an old fashioned sink-like urinal giving me my turn. At some point, I was thinking I had allowed my license to lapse, so I shouldn't be seeing cases and I would need to take some steps for damage control such as informing people they couldn't file for insurance reimbursement.

The above dream has a connection with my song Wings of the Muse which has the line "Knock and the door will be open/ But, think twice before you step outside/The keys to the kingdom are broken/We're out there naked and there's no place to hide."

This morning, I woke up around 3am. I began thinking about all sorts of things including what is known about the life of Jesus, how the accounts in the Gospels have been interpreted and what I believe about it.  I wasn't able to turn my train of thought off, so I got up and ate a bowl of cereal while reading articles in the Athletic.  I went back to bed around 430am and had an elaborate dream in which I was visiting a group of people with Mary Lou in an unfamiliar place. We had driven in some sort of large vehicle like a bus or RV and at some point, Mary Lou drove off in it and left me behind. I didn't seem to know the people I was with very well and I became anxious as to what to do. The people were friendly but didn't offer to help. Additionally, I had lost my shoes and couldn't find my wallet and cell phone at first. I finally found them and tried calling Mary Lou but she didn't answer. The people drove me to a hotel in a city and I planned to get a room using a credit card.

Charlene wants to speak to you

Dream: I was in a big department store dressed in a coat and tie. Someone complimented my tie and I commented that men don't have a lot of options when it comes to dress clothing. I don't know what I was doing in the store but an announcement came on a PA system saying that Charlene, who seemed to be the store manager, wanted to speak to me. I saw her on a video monitor- she was a middle aged black woman who had a managerial air. I went to look for her, first wandering into a lab where some technicians were doing some kind of tests or research (drug screens?). I found an office with some secretaries with whom I inquired about Charlene. She was elsewhere. I didn't feel that I was wanted for any kind of reprimand but I don't know what Charlene wanted. Maybe she wanted me to do some kind of consultation.

346-4921

I went back to sleep around 545 am after deciding not to get up and eat my bowl of Great Grains and woke up at 7 am from an elaborate anxiety dream.

I was at our private practice office after seeing a few patients. I looked at the schedule book and saw I had a busy week ahead. There was a break in the schedule just then so I decided to go for a swim in a nearby river with Karl Scott and another nameless guy before returning in 2 hours to see more cases. I remarked to Karl to the effect that life is good when you can do what I was doing- see a few people, take an enjoyable break, then seeing a few more people.  We got into the river where quite a few other people were floating (rather than swimming), just drifting along downstream in the current. We had a small boat with a motor floating next to us and I suggested we get in it. I bumped into someone as we scrambled trying to board the boat and begged his pardon- it was a minor brush and he didn't seem bothered. I'm not sure we were successful getting into the boat as the motor seemed separate although it wasn't sinking under the water. After we apparently had floated downstream for awhile, I realized I needed to get back to the office for the rest of my schedule. It was almost time and I also realized I was not going to get there on time and might need to cancel. We got out of the water in an unfamiliar area. I thought we could take a street parallel to the river and reach a major highway going back to the office. We seemed to be in an upscale subdivision. I ended up leading us into a house without permission and walking through a door to encounter the family who lived there. I apologized to the apparent father for intruding and explained we were lost and trying to find the highway. The man didn't appear to be alarmed at the group of strangers in his home and he gave me simple direction "Go left, then turn right." I checked to make sure I understood by pointing "We should go that way?" which he confirmed. Meanwhile, Karl and the other guy were acting goofy making me suspect they had taken LSD. I wanted them to cool it so as not to alarm the family. We left and started down the street. We came to a downhill stretch and, feeling a sense of urgency to get back to familiar territory I started gliding rapidly on the soles of my feet as if the street were greased. We were passing various buildings where I tried to read the signs to determine where we were but we were moving too quickly. On the right we passed a multistory brick tower that said Sears. It looked empty and abandoned. Finally, we came to Freedom Mall, a  shopping complex that looked new and was filled with shoppers. I decided to use my phone to look at a map and/or call the office to deal with missing my appointment and have someone come pick us up. It occurred to me I had allowed my license to lapse,I was seeing people illegally and I needed to resolve that situation before it came to the attention of the licensing board.  As in a number of previous dreams, I couldn't get any functions on the phone to work. I wanted to dial the number 346-4921 but couldn't access the dialup keypad screen. At that point I awoke to the usual relief that this was a dream.  The number seems familiar but after awakening, I was unable to identify it using search function. It doesn't match any numbers in my address book.