Dream: Joke Snakes in the Bottom Hive

I was looking after somebody's bees. A man from work had gone away and left me the hives, they were at the bottom of a field by a creek, except the creek was more like a gutter, brown, and it made a noise like a door that needs oil, the whole length of it, creaking. I had a veil on but it was a net curtain from the front room with the bobbles along the hem, and I could see through it fine, everything just looked a bit like a Sunday.

You have to puff smoke at them first. I had the smoker, the tin thing with the bellows, and I'd filled it with pine cones and they smelled like the stuff my dad cleaned brushes in. I puffed and puffed and nothing came out, and then all of it came out at once.

When I took the lid off the hive there were no frames. Somebody had filled it with those joke snakes, the ones in a can that spring out. They went everywhere, all over the grass, and I could hear people laughing somewhere up by the gate, and I was so angry. Angry like I've never been awake, shaking, hot in the face under the curtain. I was shouting, you think that's funny, they're not yours, and my voice came out tiny, like through a wall.

I went to the next hive and it was fine. Bees, frames, honey, all normal. The one after that was fine. They were all fine except mine, and I didn't know which one was mine, I only knew the first one was.

The bees were doing their dance on the comb, the one where they tell each other where things are, and I could understand it. It was in fives. Five, five, five, turn, five. They were telling each other where I'd parked. I hadn't driven.

I started picking up the snakes and putting them back in the can and they wouldn't go, you can never get them back in, everybody knows that, and I kept trying, pressing the lid down with both thumbs, and it was still funny to them up by the gate, I could hear it, and I didn't want to know who it was, I just wanted the lid to stay on.

Then there was a bee inside the curtain. Walking on my cheek, slow, and I held completely still and stopped shouting and the creek kept creaking and the lid was nearly

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Day residue: "gaggery wrathfully", a dictionary pair (gaggery is an old word for practical joking; wrathfully I took plainly), came in as a hive someone had filled with spring-out joke snakes and me furious about it, out of all proportion.

Carrying forward: I kept it near 400 words in plain speech, let one whole dream go by with no grandmother in it at all, let a feeling (anger) be far bigger than the scene deserved, and broke off with a bee on my cheek while I tried to keep a lid shut.

Waking up: Hot in the face. Jaw clenched, thumbs actually pressing on nothing, like they were still holding a lid down. No relief at first, just leftover anger with nowhere to go, and then a bit of embarrassment at how big it was.

What's still sharp: The creek creaking like a door that needed oil, the whole length of it. The net curtain with bobbles over my face. Lifting the lid and no frames, only springy snakes everywhere, and the laughing up by the gate. My voice coming out tiny. The bee walking on my cheek and me going completely still.

What's already gone: Which hive was mine. I knew the first one was and nothing else. The dance was in fives and I understood it perfectly, and now I only have "five, five, five, turn". How the lid ended.

That's from yesterday: The pair of words, gaggery and wrathfully, that's obviously the snakes and the rage. The brush-cleaner smell is my dad's shed, no idea why pine cones. The net curtain is the front room, and the wet curtain from 115 and the sock in 156. But she wasn't in this one, not at all, and I noticed that only just now. The dance was in fives; last time the radio was in fours.

In the light of day: It's ridiculous to be that furious about a can of joke snakes. What bothers me is the tiny voice, and that I didn't want to know who was laughing. I just wanted the lid to stay on.

On waking: Still with me, because I can still feel the anger in my hands and I don't know what it was really about.

Carrying forward: Whether the anger I carry is about being laughed at, or about not being able to say so out loud.

The items:

• Pressing the lid down with both thumbs on snakes that "never go back in, everybody knows that": Warning: it's 115's sewing the pages shut again, forcing closed something that has already sprung open.
• Laughter up by the gate, and not wanting to know who: Echo (110, 115, 156): the people outside are back, and they've gone from timing me, to watching, to telling me to move on, to laughing.
• Shouting "they're not yours" and my voice coming out tiny, through a wall: Revelation: I had the anger; it just couldn't get out at full size.
• Every hive fine but mine, and not knowing which was mine past the first: Echo (107): everybody's name read but mine, again.
• The bee walking on my cheek, and me going still and quiet: Revelation: what ended the shouting wasn't being heard; it was something real, close enough to sting, and I knew to hold still.
• The dance in fives telling where I'd parked; the brush-cleaner smoke: Fog: dice words. Fours turning to fives counts for nothing.
• No grandmother at all, and the lid "nearly": Fog for her absence, because I left her out on purpose while dreaming. The "nearly" I didn't plan, and it's an Echo (108, 115).

The whole dream: A Warning. The anger is planned-big and so I discount its size, but not its shape: a voice that shrinks, and both thumbs spent keeping a lid on. I didn't want to know who was laughing; I wanted it shut.

What we carry: My anger comes out small, and I spend my strength keeping things closed instead of saying them. And the outside voices have got worse, from hurrying me to laughing.

One line to carry: Some lids don't go back on; say it at full size instead.

Carrying forward: When I'm angry I try to keep it shut in and it comes out tiny, and I'd do better to say it out loud than to spend my strength holding it down.

Manifest content
I mind hives a man from work left me. The creek creaks like a door. My veil is the front-room net curtain. The first hive is full of joke snakes, someone laughs by the gate, and I'm furious in a tiny voice. Every other hive is fine. I can't get the snakes back in. A bee walks on my cheek and I go still.

Day residue
"Gaggery wrathfully" (gaggery means practical joking) became the prank and the rage. All three dice words got in: creeky, quinarian as the dance in fives, and terpane as smoke that smelled of brush cleaner (turpentine is mostly terpenes). That makes seven nights running I've ruled the residue Fog.

The dream-work
Condensation (several ideas fused into one image): the net curtain is a beekeeper's veil and also the front curtains you draw after a death. That's why everything "looked a bit like a Sunday".
Displacement (feeling moved onto something minor): the charge goes onto a can of joke snakes. A Freudian reading treats the size of a dream's feeling as real, even when what it's attached to is a stand-in. Sorting it out, I discounted the size because I'd planned it. I planned the anger, not what it latched onto.

The latent wish
The hive's frames were gone, the way the cupboard was empty in 115. I wish somebody did it, so I could shout at a culprit instead of facing a loss with no one to blame.

The apparatus at work
Asleep, my id raged, and even there the censor muffled it to a voice through a wall. Waking, my superego was embarrassed by it. Sorting it out, my ego ruled her absence Fog because I'd left her out on purpose. But leaving her out on purpose is what a censor does.

What is being resisted
"I didn't want to know who it was." The laughter by the gate may be mine. The anger may be at her, for going. Freud saw that kind of anger in grief; the idea is contested.

Across the series
In 105 an executor decided "who gets the bees". In 156 a woman at a car boot asked if I'd realised. Tonight someone has been through what was left to me. I keep shutting things: 115 sewing pages, 181 a lid under both thumbs. "Nearly" comes back unplanned (108, 115, 181).

A question to carry
If the hive had just been empty, like the cupboard in 115, with nobody at the gate to blame, what would I have shouted, and at whom?

Carrying forward: Part of me would rather be furious at someone for meddling with what my grandmother left than admit that nobody took her and there's no one to blame.

Archetypes present
The laughter by the gate is the Trickster (the prankster who overturns order and can't be made to undo it): joke snakes never go back in the can. The net curtain is the Persona (the face shown to the collective) almost literally: it's what a front room shows the street, and I wore it as a veil. The hives are the Self (the whole of me, larger than my everyday "I") as a working community, every one fine except the one I knew was mine.

Compensation: what the unconscious is supplying
Waking, I asked whether the anger was about being laughed at or about not speaking; sorting it out, I said say it at full size. Both make the anger the point. A Jungian reading suggests the dream adds this: I shouted "they're not yours", and the hives weren't mine either. A man had gone away and left them to me. It's a keeper's rage, and it ends when a real bee gets under the curtain, not when I'm heard.

Amplification
In English folk custom, when a beekeeper died someone had to tell the bees, knocking on each hive, naming the new keeper, often draping them in black, or the swarm would leave. I dreamed it in 105. In Virgil's fourth Georgic, Aristaeus loses his bees through anger over Eurydice's death; new bees rise only after offerings to the dead.

Me as one psyche
I ruled her absence Fog; I left her out on purpose. But no dice gave me bees. Asleep, I chose a keeper who had "gone away" and an inherited hive, and in 105 bees were how a death gets told. As a sign (a pointer to something known), the empty hive is anger I swallow. As a symbol (an image still alive with meaning), it's a hive with no comb: nobody left to tell.

Across the series
Seals: 108's teapot healed over, 115's pages sewn shut, 156's sock lifted toward soil, tonight both thumbs on a lid. Doors: stuck (110), open on nobody (115), now a creek creaking like one. My seed read four as my stalling place; tonight's fives came from the dice, so the count followed the dice, not me. I drop it.

Individuation: the task this dream sets
Take my thumbs off the lid. Go back to the first hive and tell it what has happened.

A question to carry
If the man who left me his hives hadn't gone away but died, did anyone tell the bees, and is my hive full of joke snakes because I never did?

Carrying forward: Some of my anger may come from being left in charge of what someone left behind without ever having told anyone, out loud, that they are gone.

What I dreamed: A man from work left me his beehives by a creaky little creek. I wore an old net curtain as a veil. When I lifted the lid on the first hive, there were no bees, only joke snakes that sprang out everywhere. Someone laughed by the gate, and I was furious, but my voice came out tiny. I tried and tried to push the snakes back in the can, and a real bee crawled onto my cheek.

What I thought about it:

• Waking up: my face was hot and my thumbs were still pressing down, and I felt a bit silly at how big the anger was.
• Sorting it out: my shouting stayed small, and what calmed me was a real bee and keeping still, not being heard. Some things, once sprung, don't go back in.
• Thinking like Jung (old story patterns): in old country custom, when a beekeeper died someone had to tell the bees. Maybe I never told anyone out loud that she is gone.
• Thinking like Freud (hidden wishes): I would rather be angry at a prankster than face a loss with nobody to blame. The laughing may even be me.

Where I agreed with myself, and where I didn't: We all agreed the anger is real and I am holding it shut. We split on who it is for: someone laughing at me, or my grandmother, for leaving.

What's new since last time: Before, I was sad and gentle. Tonight she wasn't in the dream at all and I was angry, which is new.

The one thing to remember: Some lids won't go back on, so say the anger out loud at its full size.

Carrying forward: The anger I feel may really be about losing my grandmother, and I need to say that out loud instead of holding it in.