My Blackberry beeps. My bosses tell me "There's an emergency downtown, and you need to get over to the shop and get that equipment there NOW!" I know what gear they mean. So, off I go! But it's the weekend and the buses aren't running.

A car magically appears around me; my mom is driving. But she's young again! The car is a lot like one of the first cars I remember from my childhood, too.

We have the object I need to transport, and we're headed downtown, along Grand Central Parkway in the Bronx. But the traffic is atrocious! Mom says "Let's get off the main road and start taking some of the surface streets." She's famous in our family for sticking to back streets and avoiding highways.

We take a wild left that puts us on a diagonal street. It takes us under and over roads, only to dead-end in a circle reminiscent of DuPont Circle in Washington, DC. Just before the circle, my mom takes another hard left, leading us onto on a wide main street. But right away, it forks. Too late! We can't get across all the traffic lanes. We end up being dumped back out on the first street we were on. All that travel and we got nowhere! Arrghhh!!!

So we get out of the car and head for the subway. Now I'm with another guy carrying a backpack. It's a long descent on an escalator down to the station (again, reminiscent of the DC subways). We make a transfer at what looks like the 14th Street/ Union Square 4,5,6 subway line, where the train takes a big turn to enter the station; we have a long walk to the next train, over some catwalks. I don't know if we actually make it downtown, because all of a sudden...

...we find ourselves at an outdoor event. There's a strip mall nearby where we leave our equipment. Then we wait in a huge parking lot for a ride home, so we can shower and maybe grab a bite to eat before heading back to carry our gear out.

My father pulls up to give us a ride. I get into the back seat and pull out my Sidekick and start texting while my partner throws his backpack into the trunk. He goes off to get something, and the car takes off! I don't realize we've left him behind until we're at the rear exit of the mall parking lot. I tell my dad "Go back! We have to pick him up."

Dad hints that he can't go back, for National Security reasons!

I realize that the asset that National Security is concerned about protecting is me. So I demand that we go back, because "There will be no man left behind enemy lines." (I've just turned into someone like Chuck from the TV series, which oddly is my middle name).

We turn back and go looking for my partner, but can't find him. I call his cell and send an email to his Blackberry to locate him. Oh, great. It's there with me, in my own pocket. Well, time is drifting away, and I need to get a shower before I come back to this event, so I give the order to leave.

We make it out of the mall and start going under an overpass to a parkway/highway overhead, when I spot my partner on a grassy knoll to our right, walking toward us. We pull over and pick him up and start back toward home... and I wake.

Takes me a few minutes to get back fully into my body. Now I recall that I woke up earlier, somewhere in the middle of the dream, and went back to sleep to finish it, somewhat aware I was dreaming. So it was partly lucid.

Some dream images that struck me:

• Blackberry: I don't own one, nor do I want one. Same goes for the Sidekick later on. They're not much help in the dream, either.
• The first car: similar to the car I remember as a child. I felt protected in it.
• Subway: 1: Dark, smelly transportation with large groups of anonymous people. 2: Getting lost in a crowd, which is a sort of protection too. 3: My strongest association to the subway is that I commuted on it daily until recently (I now live in the "'burbs" of Yonkers, but I used to live in NYC proper--Queens and Brooklyn).
• DuPont Circle/Bronx City Streets: When I worked in Washington, DC, I stayed at a hotel in the DuPont Circle area. My next job required a commute on buses along these Bronx streets.
• Overpasses/ underpasses: Aside from Freudian symbolism (which I put little faith in), these strike me as "means to an end" on the journey through life. Temporary ups and downs?
• My father: Passed away in 2001, and I still talk to him often.
• National Security: the highest-priority reason for protection.

INTERPRETATION

I think this dream is about protection. The car my mom drove was like the first one I remember as a child, and the one my dad drove was a reinforced government black sedan. All that fast movement was to protect my whereabouts, too. And that second person added to the mix was a strong male figure who felt like he was there for more protection.

But why do I need all this protection?

A second big theme is travel without knowing where I'm going, or if I'll get there on time. I think this means that my career is stagnant, and that undercover work needs to be done to move it on to the next level.

--"SchlofM"

EDITOR'S NOTE

I do wonder about that mysterious second guy. Is he just protection, or some part of you that's getting overlooked and left behind? Your dad (inside you?) rushes on without... well, whatever this guy represents. You protest some, and do find him in the end, but there IS an absent-minded, pressured, "flustered" feeling to the whole dream. Maybe that's why you keep getting detoured--you're not quite all there, or you and this other guy are sides of you that have gotten disconnected / split, making you absent-minded.

So it could be about your career, or it might be broader than that. When I get like this--in a hurry, feeling split, missing crucial decision-points until a little too late--it not only screws up work, it plays hell on my relationships to people, too.

--Chris Wayan

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