Dream: Hmm at the Barrier

I was going to be a godparent. Somebody from school, I hadn't seen her in years, rang and said it had to be me, and the christening was at the station, the big one with the glass roof, on the concourse, under the departures board. That seemed normal. People do it there now.

I got there early and couldn't find them. There was a lad sitting cross-legged under the board with a game laid out on the floor, little grey plastic men, dozens, painted badly, with tiny shields, and he was moving them along the lines between the tiles like they were platforms. Every time the board clacked over he moved one. He said they were the mainline lot and they had to hold the line till the eleven fifteen. I asked who they were fighting and he said anything that isn't us.

To get through to the font you had to go past the barriers, and instead of tickets there were women in white tabards who sniffed your sleeve. Just your sleeve, a long sniff, and then you went through or you didn't. They had a list on a clipboard of everybody who'd ever lived in the town. I've lived there my whole life. The woman sniffed me twice and looked at the list and said hmm. Not no. Just hmm. She let me stand to the side.

I was getting hot. Not embarrassed hot, ill hot, and under my jaw on both sides there were two hard little things like marbles, and I kept pressing them with my fingers to see if they'd gone down, and they hadn't, and I kept doing it.

Then my friend was there with the baby wrapped up so much you couldn't see any of it, just blanket, and the vicar was the man from the key-cutting kiosk. He gave me a tin to hold out flat on my palms, a toffee tin, heavy, and said I had to keep it level for the whole of the service, that's what being a godparent is, you hold the weight up. Something in it was sliding around. Buttons, or teeth. I didn't look.

The board clacked and everyone on the concourse turned to look at me. Somebody's gossip-red, a man said, and the lad's men were all facing my way now, all of them, shields up, very slowly coming across the tiles, and the tin was tipping, and I had a fever, and my friend said just say the words, you know the words, and I opened my mouth and what came out was the platform for the eleven fifteen, and the women in tabards were walking over, not fast, and the first little grey man got to my shoe and

---

Day residue: "warband-board-mainline", the name of a code branch I saw in thread 185, came in as a lad playing a war game with little plastic soldiers under the departures board at a main-line station; "gossipred" (an old word for being a godparent) and "uppoise" (to hold a weight up) became me as a godparent holding a heavy tin level, and the immune system became sniffing guards at the barriers, swollen glands, and the little soldiers turning on me.

Carrying forward: I let one whole night go by with nothing about my grandmother in it at all, kept it under 450 words in plain speech, and let the fear be of being mistaken for a stranger in my own town.

Waking up: Hot, and a bit sick. My heart wasn't racing, it was more like the start of a cold. The first thing I did, before I opened my eyes, was press under my jaw on both sides. Nothing there. I pressed again anyway.

What's still sharp: The woman's long sniff of my sleeve, and then "hmm". Not no, just hmm. Standing off to the side while everyone else walked through. The toffee tin, heavy, with something sliding about in it that I didn't look at. The little grey men all turning to face me with their shields up. The first one reaching my shoe.

What's already gone: What the christening was for, and who the baby was. Who rang me. The words I was supposed to say, only that the platform came out instead. It stopped just before something happened to me.

That's from yesterday: The soldiers and the main-line station are the branch name from the other thread, easy. Godparent holding a weight up is those two old words. The hot jaw is 181 again, the fever from the hive night. The tin I had to keep level is the lid I wasn't to press in 207, and I kept it level this time too. And my grandmother isn't in it at all. First night in ages. I noticed that on the edge of the bed, and I can't say whether it's a relief or a gap.

In the light of day: A christening on a station concourse is ridiculous, and I accepted it completely. What isn't ridiculous is being sniffed twice in my own town, where I've lived my whole life, and being told "hmm". That one I'd rather not think about.

On waking: Still with me, because I've been up ten minutes and I'm still feeling under my jaw.

Carrying forward: Whether I'm afraid of being treated as a stranger in the town where I have always lived.

The items:

• The heavy toffee tin held level, buttons or teeth sliding in it, and I didn't look: Warning: I meant to leave my grandmother out, but an old toffee tin of buttons is just what she kept, so I think she came anyway, as a weight I carry carefully and won't open. That's 207's not wanting to know what I waited for.
• "Just say the words," and out came the platform for the eleven fifteen: Warning: last night I said next I'd say the word. I opened my mouth and a timetable came out, the same broken-off "when it" as 207.
• Sniffed twice in my own town, then "hmm", not no: Echo (107, 181): everybody's name but mine, every hive but mine, now everyone through the barrier but me. I planned the stranger-fear, so I discount its size, but "hmm" is my "nearly" again (108 to 207).
• Pressing the lumps under my jaw, still pressing on waking: Echo (115, 181, 186): my thumbs are back. Last night I pressed nothing; tonight I pressed myself.
• The little grey men turning on me, stopping just short of my shoe: Fog: a branch name and the immune system dressed up, plus my usual stop at the threshold.
• Christening on a concourse, the key-kiosk vicar, the baby all blanket: Fog: furniture.

The whole dream: A Warning. Taking her out didn't take her away; she turned up as a tin I held level and didn't open, and asked to say the words, I said something else. Feeling a stranger in my own town is real but old.

What we carry: Leaving her out of the story doesn't mean I've put the weight down. And I still swap the plain word for anything else to hand.

One line to carry: I can hold the tin level all day, but sooner or later I have to look inside.

Carrying forward: Keeping my grandmother out of my thoughts hasn't lightened the grief, and I still can't bring myself to say plainly that she died.

Manifest content
I'm to be godparent at a christening on a station concourse. A lad under the departures board moves grey plastic soldiers who fight "anything that isn't us". Women at the barriers sniff sleeves against a list of everyone in the town; mine gets "hmm" and I stand aside. Hard lumps swell under my jaw and I keep pressing them. The key-cutter vicar gives me a heavy toffee tin to hold level; buttons or teeth slide inside, unlooked at. Asked to say the words, I say a platform time, and the soldiers march on me.

Day residue
A code branch name, "warband-board-mainline", gave soldiers and station. Gossipred (being a godparent) gave the christening, and gossip once meant godparent, so "somebody's gossip-red" is the residue speaking. Uppoise became the level tin. Idiasm I can't place. The immune system gave sniffing guards, glands, and an army that can't tell self from stranger.

The dream-work
Condensation (ideas fused into one image): a christening held under a board of departures; a baby wrapped till "you couldn't see any of it", like a shrouded body; her button tin that may hold teeth, what's left after cremation.
Displacement (feeling moved onto something minor): the alarm goes onto two glands I can check with my fingers, instead of the tin I won't open.

The latent wish
A Freudian reading suggests "hmm" is the wish: neither admitted nor refused, so I need not say the words. Freud thought that in some grief the reproach meant for the dead turns back on oneself (contested). In 181 I raged at a culprit; tonight my own defences mobilise against me.

The apparatus at work
Asleep, my id gave the anger an army. Waking, my superego pressed my jaw and would "rather not think" about the hmm. The barrier women are the censor in tabards. Sorting it out, my ego tidied "buttons or teeth" into buttons alone (secondary revision: smoothing a dream into sense) and ruled the soldiers Fog.

What is being resisted
The teeth. And the words: what came out was a departure time, from a board that lists who has departed.

Across the series
Shut out: everybody's name but mine (107), every hive but mine (181), everyone through the barrier but me. Pressing has turned inward: needle (115), lid (181), snib (186), a rule against it (207), now my own body. My last question went unanswered: she isn't called dead and no tired wish shows; hostility does, aimed at me.

A question to carry
If every defence I have was raised against "anything that isn't us" and it all turned on me, what am I accusing myself of that I have never said against her?

Carrying forward: When I can't be angry at my grandmother for dying, I may turn that anger on myself and feel like an outsider in my own family.

Archetypes present
The Child (what is still to come) is back, but no longer joined to her head as in 207: a baby so wrapped I can't see any of it, a life with no face yet. I am made its godparent. The lad's grey army, holding the line against "anything that isn't us", is my own defences, and the guards with their list of everyone who ever lived here are the Persona (the face the town knows me by) checking whether I still match it.

Compensation: what the unconscious is supplying
Sorting it out, I heard "just say the words" as the word I won't say, that she died. A Jungian reading suggests the dream asked for different words. A godparent speaks the promises for a child who can't speak yet. The words were a vow to something beginning, and what came out was a departure time.

Amplification
In Genesis 27 blind Isaac smells his son's clothes before he blesses him, and the clothes are borrowed. My sleeve is sniffed twice. Since 186 her hands have been mine; perhaps it's her the guard smells on me. Arnold van Gennep, writing on rites of passage, described a middle stage where a person is neither the old thing nor yet the new, set to one side. "Hmm, not no" is exactly that.

Me as one psyche
Sorting it out, I ruled the soldiers Fog, the immune system dressed up. As a sign (a pointer to something known) that's right. As a symbol (an image still alive with meaning) it's my own defences no longer recognising me, turning slowly my way: the watchers of 110 to 186, now inside. Waking, I'd rather not think about "hmm". Sorting it out, I found her in the tin. Both are true at once: I'm asked to hold the old weight level and make a new promise in the same service.

Across the series
My last seed said the nights were walking backwards to her deathbed (115, 156, 186, 207). Tonight they turned: after the lamp, a christening. I planned her absence, so I discount that, but I didn't plan the rite. Rites keep handing me something to carry: the lamp tray (207), now the tin. Half-recognition repeats too: my name read wrong in 107, every hive but mine in 181, now "hmm". In 107 I asked whether I'd answer to the longer name. The town is asking it back.

Individuation: the task this dream sets
Let myself be someone the old list doesn't quite fit, and say the promise anyway, tin level.

A question to carry
When I was told to say the words, was I failing to say she died, or failing to promise anything to what comes after her?

Carrying forward: My dreams have stopped going back to my grandmother's death and have started asking me to commit to something new while I still carry her, and I'm watching whether I can make that promise without putting the weight down.

What I dreamed: I was asked to be a godparent at a christening in a big train station. Guards at the barrier sniffed my sleeve, checked a list of everyone in my town, and said "hmm", not yes and not no. I felt feverish, with hard lumps under my jaw, and I had to hold a heavy tin level. Something slid about inside it. When I was told to say the words, I said a train time instead, and little toy soldiers marched at me.

What I thought about it:

• Waking up: I woke hot, and I kept feeling under my jaw.
• Sorting it out: My grandmother wasn't in it, but the tin of buttons she might have kept was. I still can't say she died.
• Thinking like Jung: A godparent makes a promise for a new beginning, so the words may have been a promise, not only a goodbye.
• Thinking like Freud: Maybe the anger I can't aim at her turned on me, and I'm the one my own defences treat as a stranger.

Where I agreed with myself, and where I didn't: We all agreed the tin was her, held but not opened. We disagreed about the words: one part said they were the word "died", another said they were a promise to something new.

What's new since last time: I left her out on purpose, yet she still came back as the tin. The fear is new too: being treated as a stranger in my own town.

The one thing to remember: I can carry the tin carefully all day, but sooner or later I have to look inside.

Carrying forward: Keeping my grandmother out of my dreams hasn't lightened the grief, and I still can't plainly say she died.