World Dream Bank: CHEAPSHIP

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CHEAPSHIP

Dreamed 1996/8/6 by Chris Wayan

I'm a crewman on a ship steaming over deep water. Our owner's a cheapskate. The ship's falling apart--not just shabby, it's dangerous. The traction-mats stuck on the deck wore smooth and peeled off long ago, and even the railings are gone in places; you have to walk slowly, hanging on to window sills and pipes.

I need to go down to the lower deck around the anchor-well; it looks like a relatively safe stair, protected by solid gunwales. I start down, but find the steps so slick and worn they're only a sort of curving slide. Hang on and creep down. Could do this job ten times as fast if the captain weren't such a cheap bastard. Indifference to his workers' lives--my life--that I could understand even if I hated it, but this neglect wastes time and wages too. Makes no sense, even for a selfish man.

At the stair's end, where the railing is all that keeps you from going over, I find it's torn away, just a bent dangling pipe now. I'm leaning on the remaining half, seemingly bolted securely into the wall--but it starts to bend. I scramble in horror, hug the smooth gunwales, not much to grip--hang on as the rest of the rail peels off groaning and falls a hundred feet into the sea. Creep back up the stair like a rock climber, taking many minutes, checking every step, every handhold.

I make it alive... just.

But I can't go on working like this.

I dangle off edge of a rusty ship; collage of a dream by Wayan. Click to enlarge.

Dream collage by Wayan, done at Catshall's art workshop, Oakland 2023

NOTES

It's a manysided nightmare, a fine example of how multidimensional a dream can be:

1: I watered our front yard today, and it took forever: bad hose, yard choked with brush and weeds, a fire hazard. And the traction mats on our steep old Victorian steps are coming loose again. Someone's gonna break an ankle--or a neck. The neglect is real and physical and dangerous. Fix it or else!
2: But I also asked for dreams explaining why I mistrust people so much. Answer: I was in chronic danger in school and at home--both parents and teachers neglected basic safety issues. Danger was so chronic, I went numb to it! My fears are realistic, given that I don't protect myself--I never learned how.
3a: Ship = relationship! It's a chronic pun in my dreams. I've been wondering why I'm so reluctant to start dating... No wonder. I neglect basic EMOTIONAL safeguards too!
3b: Or is it just me? The dream may be saying my friends and housemates, my support system, are unreliable. It's true they haven't encouraged me to start dating again. When I'm single and depressed, I go out with them, or I hang around the house and fix things... so why should they play matchmaker or help me find a girlfriend?
4: And let's not forget the most literal interpretation, the one right in the dream. It's about corporate capitalism gone overboard. Almost literally overboard in my case! That ship is the ship of state--the state of the world. The safety net rotting away...
As long as short-term returns are high,
let a few tankers leak and sailors die,
reactors blow, and planes fall from the sky.

LISTS AND LINKS: I'm Just Not Myself Today! - dream jobs - ships - stinginess - maintenance & repair - stairs - oops! - falling - nightmares - health & relationship advice - heritage - capitalism - collage dream art

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