This is an often recurring dream. I am driving a car, when suddenly I am not in the car but I am still responsible for controlling it. Even though I am not in the car, a crash would injure me. I feel terrible responsibility. I can see it up ahead speeding up, out of control, endangering others, weaving, closer and closer to disaster. I am always alone, but last night one of my sons was in the car, then out of the car. We were watching the car swerve around the corner as I tried to control the car with my mind as it crashed. It crashed. I turned to my son and said, I don’t think that car is real. He assured me it was not real.
This dream immediately brought to mind last nights dharma talk on eating at deerparkmonastery.org. Bother phap luu talked about eating phantom carrots and phantom oatmeal. That often when we eat, we are not eating our food but eating our thoughts. Am I driving a phantom car? Living a phantom life?
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But if you ask me, that’s not what you dream is about.
I think you feel like you are losing control of your life. Your kids are leaving the nest and making decisions not involving you that you may not even like. Maybe your wife is making decisions without your input. And perhaps its slowly dawning on you that at this point your life’s trajectory is pretty well set. Sure you could move, buy a different car, etc but for the most part the amount of $$ you have to adjust course is fixed.
And perhaps your driving skills are starting to degrade just a bit.
Why do I say this? I’m pretty much in the same spot. Slowly it has been dawning on me that my choices are pretty limited. Even at work.
The ink isn’t dry yet, but the chapters of my life are at least penciled in at this point. I’m not sure how I feel about all of this. Not sure at all.
The last bumper sticker I had on my car was as a teenager. I had “avoid hangovers stay drunk”. Yeah that was smart. Just an invitation to get pulled over.
In my thirties I bought the bumper sticker “Happiness is coming”. Never worked up the courage to put it on my car. It is probably still in the garage somewhere.
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