Conrad: Your move.
Susan: Was the other room a classroom?
Conrad: She didn't say.
Susan: hmm. Perhaps education will help to provide for her material needs? Or, if the room was a classroom, perhaps it's merely a distraction.
Susan: A distraction from what will fulfill her.
Conrad: ok, the dream tried to send her a message: did she accept or reject it?
Susan: Maybe I'm on the wrong track, but I think that depends on the coke guy's role.
Conrad: it's a good instinct. Depend on context.
Conrad: What is cocaine use about?
Susan: avoidance
Conrad: what is it an instance of?
Conrad: why cocaine usage?
Susan: recreation? wealth?
Conrad: ok, but keep 'em coming.
Susan: Pleasurable avoidance and an obvious sign of wealth?
Conrad: forgetting about the cocaine for a sec: what happens in a classroom?
Susan: Teaching/learning.
Conrad: Excellent!
Conrad: So, what is the dream telling her that this is about?
Susan: Education is a better fulfillment than material wealth?
Susan: Or that it can lead to material wealth?
Conrad: That's good. You're still taking it a little literally though.
Susan: Knowledge in general, rather than formaleducation?
Conrad: shopping-mind is interrupted by some Message, which shopping-mind thinks of as leading to impoverished living.
Conrad: Shopping-mind flees.
Conrad: Shopping-mind has rejected the Message; the dream sits shopping-mind down in a classroom.
Conrad: The dream says: No, look: there's a lesson you need to learn.
Conrad: What is the lesson about?
Conrad: [guy using cocaine] = addiction.
Susan: She has a shopping addiction?
Conrad: exactly.
Susan: I see. It's clear now.
Conrad: Good.
Conrad: Now, why is he in the other room?
Susan: She's avoiding her addiction?
Conrad: Why isn't he in the same room, or even, why isn't it her doing the cocaine?
Conrad: She's avoiding the message, yes.
Susan: Right, avoiding dealing with it.
Conrad: Exactly. Shopping-mind is pushing away the knowledge, so the representation is physically distant.
Susan: The thing I wouldn't have guessed is the sort of functionality of the classroom setting.
Conrad: Also, putting it in black and white; seeing it not through your own eyes; disguising the action.
Conrad: Yeah, that comes with experience.
Susan: Very interesting.
Conrad: That's just literacy; you have that ability b/c you dream. It's hard-wired. Learning it intellectually just takes a bit of time.
Conrad: It's judging where the other person is and what message they're ready for -- that's the hard part.
Susan: Do you find that you understand your own dreams better as well?
Conrad: Yeeess, but b/c I do a lot of trancework I usually understand my own dreams while they're happening.
Susan: So you dream lucidly?
Conrad: Sometimes. Kicks in automatically during nightmares or something upsetting.
Susan: That's useful.
Susan: I find that my dreams are rarely as linear as the one you described. Althouh maybe I just don't remember them that way.
Conrad: Do you journal?
Susan: Yes.
Susan: My dreams also tend to be quite gruesome.