Morality Dream

I had an interesting dream this morning. In my dream, a young woman had a crush on me. She wasn’t particularly pretty, nor was she unattractive. I would call her “average looking.” I knew she was too young to be interested in a relationship with someone my age. Nevertheless, she was.

Let me hasten to add that this dream was not about sex. The female in my dream was just a young woman who wanted to be around me, to “hang out” with me. I knew she liked me and wanted more than just friendship, and I enjoyed her company, too. But at the same time, I knew I was being unfair to her, because a future relationship with her was not possible. I knew I was too old for her. That created a dilemma: do I tell her this friendship has to end now, or do I enjoy her company for a while longer?

My dream-friends told me to end it now. They said that letting something continue that ultimately could never be, would be unfair and hurtful to the woman. And my reply to them was can’t I let this continue for a little while? I like her company, and she likes my company. Do I have to end it now?

Some people might like to know which outcome I chose. But that was not the point of the dream. After all, my dream-friends who were telling me to end the friendship were nothing more than a part of me – what Freud called the super-ego, the moralizing part of the personality. And the part of me that wanted the friendship to continue for a while longer was what Freud called the id, the part of the personality that wants instant gratification. The dream was a debate between the id and the super-ego. And dreaming-me, the observer of the debate, was what Freud called the ego, the realist that mediates between the id and the super-ego.

My dream was a morality dream, as if something was saying to me: let me give you this situation and see how you respond. And I responded by admitting that something made me feel good and I would like more of it, while also acknowledging that having it would prove to be a mistake. For me, my choice mattered less than learning that I had a bit of wisdom about the matter. For me, the dream was about the difference between getting what one selfishly wants, and doing the right thing.

I’ve had many “junk dreams” where nothing is gained. Then along comes a dream that makes me think, if there are spiritual beings on “the other side,” perhaps, now and then, they test someone. Maybe, once in a while, they “plant” a situation into a dream to see how the dreamer will respond. It’s just a thought.

Tonight, I will probably go back to dreaming that I’m spending hours wandering through a maze of downtown city streets looking for my car, or a similar dream that is equally pointless. That kind of dream happens much too often.