Guinan’s Visit, (Yeah, in my dreams.)
I had a dream Monday morning that is interesting, at least, to me.
In the dream, I was with some friends in a very small town in southern Arizona. There were some mountains nearby, and we were in a tourist trap. One of the mountains had a feature that was shaped like an old toaster, so I pointed this out to one of the people who lived in the town. To my surprise, he had never noticed it before.
He ran off to tell other people, and my friends and I decided to go hiking through the mountains.
While we were hiking, my friends were carrying on loudly, and occasionally got into an argument. We stumbled on the property of the guy who I’d pointed out the mountain’s shape to, and he thanked me again, saying that now that he sees the shape, he can not help but see that shape. (This is an interesting point about how we can create things subjectively, simply by changing our perceptions. The mountain was always there, but the perception of the mountain being shaped as a toaster was new. This isn’t the point of this story, though.)
We left the man’s property and continued our hiking along the desert mountains. Eventually, I became so fed up with my friends arguing and not taking anything serious that I left them. I went to a recently abandoned car and settled in. (How I knew where to find the car, or even how it had made its way up the side of a mountain, remain mysteries of the dream world.) The windows were open, and the roof provided plenty of shade, so I settled in, enjoying the cool, aromatic breeze as I looked out across the landscape. There was a cave behind me that looked like a large animal nest, and I could see light coming into the cave from another end, so I knew that it was well ventilated, and likely cooler than the car, but the threat of animals living inside kept me from going inside.
After some time had passed, Guinan, of Star Trek fame, came up to the car. In her usual, enigmatic style which tends to make the subject of her questions reveal something they didn’t know about themselves, she asked me why I was in the abandoned car, rather than in the air-conditioned van that we had arrived in.
The dream ended before I could answer. I would have said that the car I was in was cool enough, to which she would have asked even more question, eventually breaking my barriers down until I realized what I was running from, and how to approach it successfully. If the dream had been allowed to continue, though, I would have forgotten about it, and it wouldn’t have helped me at all.
Now, I’m not saying that dreams are the end-all and be-all. (I’m not saying that they’re not, either.) Dreams are, however, very powerful tools to communicating with your subconscious mind, so when there is something unusual going on, it is often best to listen up. Guinan showing up is certainly unusual for me, so I’m listening.
The mind finds it easiest to work with symbols, so dreams are filled with them. Symbols are also extremely personal, although many people share the same basic set of symbols, especially when in the same culture. The first step to figuring out what a dream means is to understand the basic theme. Then, identify the different symbols, and figure out what they are representing. The last step is to ask others what their interpretations may also be, in case you missed something.
So, the basic theme of the story is that I am somewhere to have fun. While enjoying myself, I get angry about the style of fun that others are having, and I get more and more serious, and have less and less fun. Eventually, I leave, to find my own quiet place to think, and I choose a place that is fine, but certainly not the best available. At least I didn’t stay out in the hot sun. 
The first symbol is that of my friends. Any large group is generally society at large.
I’m not certain if the man who never saw the toaster feature on the mountain was a symbol or not. Regardless, he does make a good point about not seeing the forest for the trees.
The arguing and carrying on is a symbol, though I’m not entirely certain what it means. My reaction to it definitely gives it enough weight that I need to understand it somehow.
The choice between staying outside, finding shade in the abandoned car, or entering the cave for even more shade is also a symbol, as is the hidden choice of returning to the air-conditioned van. Staying outside would be foolish, because of dehydration and sunburn. Going into the cave would bring ideal conditions, but it has a pretty severe risk of containing wild animals. The abandoned car was a compromise between safety and comfort, and until Guinan showed up, it seemed to be the ideal situation. The van was, of course, the ideal situation, but in order to use it, I had to return with the group, and that was my real stumbling block. I have always thought of myself as an individual, but I can still be myself, even when I’m in social situations… In fact, if I don’t let my fears take over, then I can be even more myself especially when I’m around other people.
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