Date: 15-06-2015
This afternoon I had taken a nap on my bed and I had this dream. There was a party at my parents’ place, and I had gone there too. It was really busy. There were partying people throughout the whole house. I browsed around a bit, not really engaging with anyone there, when I realised that of course my mom and dad would be here too, and I had recently told them I didn’t want any contact with them for a while. I didn’t look forward to the prospects of running into either of them.
On the hallway on the first floor I pushed myself through a crowd of people, who all were like: “Hey, Willem! How are you doing? It’s Willem! Look everyone, Willem is here!” Whatever stealth I was hoping to apply was not going to work. And there she was, my mom. She had heard everyone say my name and come looking for me. She wanted to give me a piece of her mind about me not wanting to have contact with her and dad. I remained calm and simply replied to all her accusations with: “It’s better this way. Just let me be at peace.”
But she continued to berate me with baseless accusations for the soul purpose of getting me to feel guilty, and I fell for it and began defending my decision to her, which in hindsight I knew was pointless. It’s always pointless to get drawn into a discussion with her, cause she doesn’t play by the rules. Engaging with her means you enter into her game. And that’s what I did. I played her game. But these endless ‘you this and that, no you this and that‘ type of discussion I knew all too well, and she lost at her own game. I won this round, and left.
I went to “my room” which in this dream was the little attic above the kitchen. Though in the dream this space was actually quite large. It was as big as my student dorm studio, but with a sloped ceiling. I sat down on the bed to gather my thoughts, which was a big mattress on the ground in the left side corner of the room. But my mom had followed me to my room and she wasn’t finished with me yet, and started round two of her game. Meanwhile I had started gathering my stuff as I wanted to leave. I was going to leave to my student dorm, haha. Dream logic.
But while I was gathering stuff I spoke to her again, and our discussion became ever more heated. The things that came forth from my mouth were ever more foul, as she was able to anger me more and more. I let her get under my skin. I said things I knew in the moment I would later regret, but again I won the discussion. Talked her right into a corner. She walked out, angry at her second defeat, and pushed her way through the masses of people on the stairs on her way down. I followed her as I was on my way out now.
Suddenly mid stairs she stopped and turned around, and amidst all these people she played the victim card, looked at me all angry, and said in a whiny voice: “Why do you have to turn every thing in to a role playing game!?” With an obvious forced calm voice I replied to her: “To make you see you are a bitch of the same calibre as your own mother!” I was so incredibly mad at her in this dream. She is the one to create role playing games. She just tried to get everyone to side against me, but I didn’t care in that moment what people thought of me. I just wanted to tell her this to her face.
After I said this she looked at me shocked and with disbelieve I had just said this out loud, then looked away as if thinking to herself, like her gears were moving to process what I had said. She looked frightened by whatever passed in her mind. I walked back up the stairs and ascended the stairs to the attic, where I knew from a previous dream I could exit through the window, and I left.
Analysis 26-02-2024:
This dream showed me clearly I was struggling to break the old dynamic between me and my parents, particularly my mom. I had only recently left the house and I really felt like I had escaped some kind of cult that was still pulling on me. Her grip on me was through her ability to get under my skin once I engaged with her. I knew intuitively I needed to just remove her ability to try and get me to engage, so that she couldn’t get under my skin. I wonder if I am now at a point where I will be able to restrain myself from engaging. In honesty, I actually doubt it. I still harbour a lot of anger towards her, but that is in a future where many more things have happened since. But when I had this dream, it was somehow liberating because I won the discussions, but it also showed me that these ‘wins’ don’t come with rewards. “Play stupid games, win stupid prices.” I think that was the lesson of this dream. It doesn’t help anyone to win from her in the games she plays. It is much better to just not play. Many dreams would follow that showed me how much I struggle with that still.
