Dream: He Doesn’t Need Me Anymore

Though I don’t really know them, within the context of my dream, the people I was with were co-workers. We’re traveling back to (office? party location?) where we started our trip and we’re all in a yellow school bus. As we drive along, I see along the side of the road, my ex “John,” who (in my dream) I know has some sort of debilitating disease – something like MS – so that he’s in a wheelchair – slowly losing muscle control over a period of time. When he was healthy he was very athletic (in real life he’s an avid bicyclist).

In this roadside scene, John is out for a “ride/race” in his wheelchair and has gotten as far as he can considering the road conditions, so he has stopped and making his way into some other sort of box with wheels contraption, which I understand to be a kind of transfer vehicle to get him past whatever is in his way in the road. There are people there helping him. (That is the key message here, by the way.) As we pass him in our bus I see him, but don’t tell anyone I know him or that I’ve noticed him. But…I immediately begin to worry about him and feel guilty about not being there for him.

After we arrive back to our base location (office/party location) I find myself on my own – other co-workers are congregating in another area of the space – so I feel like it will be safe for me to “wander” downtown to the area where I expect John to be…so I can check up on him and make sure he’s okay. I know where he lives – in an old apartment downtown. The town in my dream is older and the apartments seem a bit run down there. John lives in a second floor apartment – over a bar. (Interesting, since in real life “John” is an alcoholic.)

As I head down the street to search out John, I’m taking a “back alley” or back hallway kind of route. It’s kind of a street fair atmosphere…there are lots of vignettes of carnival-like things and I stop at some on the way, but I’m mostly looking in from the back side of them or wandering through them, but not really participating. I have a sense of being invisible/behind the scenes so the people who are participating don’t know I’m there.

About half way there I run into a (true) former co-worker of mine. I see her inside one of the carnival vignettes and think to myself that…since she’s alone…maybe it would be safe to reveal myself to her so I would have someone to talk to about…things. I approach her and we begin talking…about nothing in particular…and we continue moving together down the street, but now we’re actually in the streets as we go.

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I don’t think I ever make it to John, but the general feeling around this dream was that I was feeling guilty for not “being there” for John, but at the same time, I knew there were other people helping him along and so he was doing just fine without me.