I am in an outdoor shopping area in Southern California – a place like Palm Springs or Santa Monica. I try to find the parked car and the person I came with, and cannot remember either. I meet a teenage boy saying he is having a difficult time, and I tell him fifteen was my most difficult year. I then sit down and listen to a phone message – someone from South Africa wants to sell diamonds (scam). As I sit there, a young man with very characteristic face comes up to me, is annoying, and refuses to leave. I push him away with my foot.
I kick something over by the side of the bed which wakes me and my partner up. I tell her my dream, she tells me her dream, and it turns out we had very similar dreams at the same time. She too dreamt she was out shopping with a friend, she finds her car but it has not keys (and starts anyway), and she is similarly bothered by a young man who fits the description of the young man in my dream.
This has happened several times before. We seem to have similar dreams at the same time.
The dream itself seems a bit disjointed. I cannot remember where the car is parked or who I am with. The teenager probably reflects me working on issues from my teens the day before. I am not sure about the scam phone message, although it may partly reflect unease about the information situation in the world today (all the conspiracy theories, misinformation etc.). The young man with the unusual face (smooth, triangular) was a bit weird and insistent, both in my dream and my partners.
Of course, it’s all me. The distressed teenage boy is the unhealed parts of me from that time in my life. The scam attempt reflects how I sometimes scam myself – when I lead myself astray by believing my thoughts. The bothersome young man is also me, perhaps a part of me that reacted to pain and trauma by being a bit weird and insistent.
I can find where I am like that young man. And I also see it in my own life when I was in my early twenties – I was very driven and caught up in certain ideas.