Dream #2

Dream 2:

Bill and I are in the car. We're leaving a place where we've been.
He is driving. We are going to get onto a freeway from an onramp that is underneath the freeway. It involves heading south, turning left, and then getting on a northbound onramp. We head to a left turn lane under the freeway that will put us on the onramp to turn left onto the freeway. He goes too far left of the left turn lane, thus putting us in jeopardy of being hit by oncoming traffic. We go up the onramp and get on the freeway (but when we get up there it's more like a highway, like 101 as you go past Santa Barbara). This time we pass some cops and CHP's and then Bill goes too far left gain, goes off the highway, across where oncoming traffic would be and into a rutted muddy field. I think the car won't move. There's a slight break in my perception and somehow we are then off he field and coming to a diagonal parking spot on a business street in front of some stores. I know the cops will follow us. I ask him if he's having a heart attack. It seems like he is or like he's having a slight stroke. I tell him to say he's having a heart attack. We get out of the car and walk to the curb. He's saying, "I think I'm having a heart attack," falls down on the pavement, and it looks like he might be starting to twitch. I'm not sure if he's acting or not. I couldn't think of any other reason why he would have done those things in the car. In the meantime I'm yelling, "He's having a heart attack!" very loudly and I start to hyperventilate. A lot. I sit down. I am worried about what the consequences will be. I'm starting to pass out.

I wake up. I wonder if this dream is about me. I am trying to clean up the things Bill has done wrong. I try, always tried, to make sense of his behavior that never really made sense. Did I make excuses for him? Yes. What does this dream tell me about that?

My therapist tells me this is the most telling of the two dreams. She thinks both interpretations of the first dream are true; I am both the woman who is taking Bill home and the one who is left behind. But this dream is clear. It is clearly about how I let Bill jeopardize me time and time again, and I made excuses. For whatever bad behavior Bill did, I made excuses.