What Does Freud Say About Sharks?

Just now, I dreamt that I was the son of the president of some war-torn South American country. I was constantly trying to gain his attention and favor (in a son-dad kind of way) but never could. Our mother (my brother Adam was there, too) did what she could to make our lives happy. At one point, there was a rebellion, and we had to move from the capitol to a makeshift city, which was more fortress than anything else. The sheriff's office was closed and had a sign on it, but I do not remember what it said.

I was playing along the shore of the river, and saw two insects fighting underwater. One looked like an insectile skeleton. The other was much smaller. Soon, a somewhat larger crayfish or scorpion came along, and began defending the smaller insect (or maybe just spitefully attacking the larger one), but a few moments after that, a fourth insect came along, turtle-shaped and colored a ghostly white. It was much bigger than any of the others, perhaps nine inches long. As I watched, it grew (without my realizing it was doing so at the time) until it was a couple of feet long, like one of those sea turtles that crawl up onto the beach to lay eggs, except it still had the same tiny head. It swam away after that; I'm not sure if it ate the others first.

Finally, some soldiers arrived as I was leaving the river, in a boat that looked somewhat like a VW microbus. I was the only one who realized they were enemy soldiers, and I ran as fast as I could back to our house (which was rustic, yet quite palatial in contrast to the muddiness and makeshift quality of the rest of the outpost) to warn my dad, since I knew they were there for him. He and my brother and I gathered on the front porch...I ran to see if one of the other buildings was safer - I think it was probably a command post or something - but soldiers had already taken it over. There was fighting in the streets by this point. One of his aides, also on the porch with us, was shot moments after I returned to report that the other building was taken, so we decided we had better move on. I'm not sure where mom was at this point, but she never reappeared in the dream.

We took a nearby jeep and began heading deeper into the outpost, which was several miles across. There was a river and a dock at one end...I had been there earlier in the dream, but cannot remember why or what happened. This river and dock had a more industrial feel...the one where I was playing was more like what you expect from your South America rivers...a low muddy bank, et al. Anyway, we drove straight down the dock, which was very narrow, and devoid of any sort of - well, anything. The boats were all gone, if there had ever been any. At the far end of the dock, inexplicably, was a wall with a door in it, which looked as if it would have been more at home in some 1970's drugstore in a small town. It was whitewashed wood paneling, with the paint peeling away in places. Halfway down the dock, a police car appeared behind us with his lights going. I think they were chasing us, but they could have been escorting us, I guess.

When we got to the end, I jumped very quickly out of the jeep and ran through the door...on the other side, there was a section of dock about two feet long, with a ladder down to the water. I looked over the edge and saw that the only boats left were a kayak, a pair of small inflatable rafts, and a slightly larger wooden one, sort of a fishing boat, but still not meant for more than two or three people. I didn't trust the wooden one for some reason. I started climbing down the ladder to secure the kayak, because I knew time was running short - also, I didn't want the police chasing us to see me, as I knew at this point that they were up to no good.

Apparently deciding ladders are too slow, Adam had jumped into the river, and a huge shark was chasing him around. I remember thinking at the time that it had just appeared out of nowhere; that it was incongruous, even for a dream which was already sort of odd. He was managing to avoid it by keeping a bigger rubber raft or something between him and it. He apparently lost it for a moment, 'cause he swam back to me (hanging around at the bottom of the ladder) and my dad yelled down to get the kayak ready. I wasn't sure who was going to take it, since it only held two people (it kept switching between a canoe and a kayak, but even as a kayak, it was a special long one which had spaces for two people). I yelled back about the shark, but he didn't have a good solution to that...I think he was more concerned about soldiers. He may have yelled back saying for one of us to distract it; in any case, that's what Adam decided to do. As I maneuvered the kayak into place for dad to get in, I saw the shark swimming up towards me very quickly from underwater. I had enough time to climb a little bit up the ladder, so it missed when it jumped up out of the water at me, and while I was trying to decide how to kill it, I woke up.

·    ·    ·

Just in case someone out there doesn't think I'm strange enough, I thought I should get up and write all this down, because I never remember my dreams after a few moments (I already can't remember what I wrote above, without looking). So what does it mean, all you expert psychiatrists?

Back to sleep.

P.S. Blogger's spellcheck really sucks. It wanted me to replace "palacial" with "blackly", "1970's" with "1970's" (uhh..), and it had never heard of a kayak.