Vanity

There are exceptions, but as a general rule of thumb, I don't like it when people share their dreams with me. I don't mean their aspirations, I mean their trippy little nighttime manifestations of their subconscious. If the person is a friend, or if it's lighthearted, that's fine. But I really dislike it when, say, a co-worker approaches me and says, "I had a dream about you last night!" I'll always ask them to please not tell me about it, but you know how people are. They'll insist on telling me. And always, always they tell it as though it's giving me some insight into myself.

Here's what they're not getting: It gives me no insight into myself. But it might give me a frightening insight into THEM. Perhaps in their dream I wasn't really "me", but I was symbolizing something else. Nevertheless, when the story is relayed it generally reveals that "I" did something to terrorize the person in the dream. This person is generally, for lack of a better term, my subordinate at work. So they've just given me a nice little peak into the fact that they resent me or fear me or whatever. I didn't want to know that. I could have enjoyed my day without hearing that in their most vulnerable state, while their psyche runs rampant, it conjures images of me with duck feet chasing them down a marshmallow staircase. Or, better yet, when I get the full blown resentment dream smashed in my face, like they dreamt that everyone in the office chipped in on a lottery ticket and it wasn't a winner so they threw it away and then I went to the trash and it magically materialized into a winner. I don't really need to know that's how they feel about me, dig? I'd rather cruise through my days at the office with a veneer of polite distance that's been burnished by my conscious and willful ignorance and aided by their sublimation.

But we can't have everything we want. I have to politely smile and then nod and then go "Oh! Ha!" and then tuck my head back down after they've (probably quite purposefully) unloaded this guilt-fest on me. Am I supposed to apologize to them? Because quite often, they stand there, waiting. Expectant. Am I supposed to say, "I'm sorry I had the winning lottery ticket"? Or am I supposed to say, "I'm sorry for anything I've done to make you resent me"?

That said, I'm going to share the discomfort!! Over the past six months, I've developed a recurring dream. In this dream, my teeth are crumbling and falling out, and I don't like it one bit. Basically, it's a psychology 101 dream: It signifies insecurity. I'm not about to lie and say I'm a fully secure person. But try this explanation, too. Seven months ago, I got my teeth fixed. Nothing vain, mind you. But when I was a teenager, I got a tooth knocked out while playing ball. Then, a couple years ago, the replacement tooth got knocked out. Instead of getting another bridge put in, the dentist decided to do a permanent implant. That's fine. Except that it took over a year. For a year, I walked around with no front tooth. I was *incredibly* self-conscious and insecure about it. It finally got fixed, and I'm very happy with the results. But a month or so after that, the crumbling teeth dream started.

I'm not so vain. If you've seen pictures of me, you'll understand why I'm not. But I am vain about my teeth, expecially now. So on nights when I'm disturbed or unhappy or when I've eaten tacos too late, I have this bad dream. I think it signifies insecurity, yes. But I think it signifies insecurity that my teeth are going to get fucked up again.

If the dream ever morphs into something where one of my co-workers is extracting my teeth, I'll be sure to not tell them about it.