wearing my own clothes

My class just finished and I’m hungry. Walking through the hallway, I peer through an open door and see a group of students working on a clothing project. I know one of the students and ask him if I can take his project with me to lunch. It is a shirt that he has decorated by gluing on cords and trinkets. He’s fine with my taking it, as long as I have it back in time to turn in. I drape the shirt over my arm and head to the university cafeteria, but before I get there, the decorations begin to peel off the shirt. 

Oh no. I scurry back to my friend’s classroom, but no one is there. I am desperate to fix my friend’s project, but the supplies are put away and I can’t find them no matter how hard I search. I acknowledge that my friend was slack in the way he secured the ornaments to his shirt in the first place, but I still feel responsible and guilty because I had it in my possession, and I feel powerless to resolve the problem because it wasn’t my class and I don’t have access to the supplies. 

I awoke from this dream agitated, frustrated, and confused. And then, when the mental fogginess of the night’s sleep cleared from my head, I understood the message of my dream.

I had gone to sleep the night before, like I had so often the last few weeks, struggling with and fretting over Mason’s decision to quit dance competition. It seems that all of my mind’s attempts to find peace with his decision by reminding myself that it was the right decision for him were not working.

In my dream, I took on something that was not mine. It was not my class or project or learning. I had absolutely no connection or tie to it. I didn’t even have a use or need for it. Yet I voluntarily took it and wore it as if it were mine. 

How CRAZY is it that I would ask to take the project, life lesson, learning of someone else when it had absolutely nothing, nada, zero to do with me?!  Totally irrational. Just like I have done with Mason’s journey with dance. I have created an illusion that it is mine too.

My possession of the shirt, the illusion of my connection to the shirt and that it had something to do with me, caused me to feel responsible for solving the problems when it didn’t look the way it did when I took it on. No attempt on my part would make a difference because I did not have the resources, tools, or vision to fix it...it was not my shirt, my project or my class. No wonder I was consumed with the negative emotions of stress, worry, panic and powerlessness. Likewise, I am suffering Mason’s decision because I have no control or power to resolve it in the way I want it to be, or think it should be, resolved. 

Now I see that I am wearing Mason’s dance journey, although it is not mine, and never was. His decision about dance is solely his because it is about his life, his learning, his journey, and it is not mine to address. Now, it is only mine to UNDRESS.

Side note - I thought that it would be interesting to include the interpretations from my two dream symbol books on the following three elements in my dream:

Hunger - physical, emotional, and mental deficiencies; wanting and being in need of food in any form, usually emotional food.

School - learning; indication that your unconscious is processing lessons from your waking life.

Clothes - refers directly to your self-esteem; how you currently feel about yourself.