Account
My memory of the dream starts hazily in a high school setting. I am dismayed by recent events that have been embarrassing and degrading to my character. What happened exactly escapes my memory. But Barton, my best friend at the time, and the other kids at school keep their distance around me, and I feel unwanted.
Somehow, I bring my beach towel to school and leave it somewhere, perhaps in the gym locker room. It somehow becomes the center of a joke amongst my friends from Greenacres, as one person comes to tell me. He was a jovial fellow, reminiscent of one of my acquaintances in high school. He tells me the story in which the beach towel led a party of people to chant my name in unison as a joke and as a showing of affection. “Schizoid! Schizoid! Schizoid!”
After this story is told, my reputation feels renewed and people begin to approach me for small-talk and conversation. Particularly a blonde girl, wearing a dress made from the same cloth as my beach towel, comes to chat with me. I find her attempt to converse with me a bit contrived but nevertheless I conduct casually with her and others.
Barton meets with me in the courtyard of the school just when the day was over, and hands me the towel. I left it in the locker room apparently and he was doing me a favor by retrieving it for me. I was grateful for that, and felt fond of him at that point.
Next, we were in my backyard with Barton and a few friends. Barton was throwing the football and I stood watch, observing. I felt as though this was the same situation where the dream had started; perhaps where my indignity first fell upon me. I called out to Barton to pass me the ball, and just then our other friends retired from the field, leaving Barton alone, but insisting Barton keep throwing the ball with me.
Barton was game and so was I, so I went long and caught the pass from behind with my hands behind my back. Barton was shouting praise from behind. For the moment, it felt good to receive praise from him. It was a confirmation of his amicability towards me and I was happy to receive it.
I halted my gait suddenly when I spotted a big yellow snake to my right. I dodged it by heading left but ran into another big yellow snake in the bushes. I fell back and in my falling, my legs went up and provoked the first snake into biting my ankle. There ended the dream.
Interpretation
Barton and I grew apart when I left West Palm Beach for college after graduating high school. We made our rendezvous every so often since then. Lately, since I have moved back into town, I have consciously broke away from hanging out with him. The reasons why are perplexing to me yet still, but it involved a sense of personal dissatisfaction with our relationship.
In the beginning of my dream, I felt like a nobody. If there were “cool kids”, I was not one of them. This is a feeling I’ve had before and a feeling that I am not uncomfortable with.
The beach towel that I brought to school in my dream is my favorite towel in real life. It is colored a vibrant, deep blue with white and light blue stripes running down it longways. It has a very retro vibe to it. It’s beautiful, to me.
The beach towel, I think, signified my uniqueness of character; the novelty that I have in this world and can offer to the world. When I brought it to school, I was unknowingly bringing my uniqueness for all to see, in a way.
Before long, the beach towel earns me a new-found popularity. I am approached by people I did not notice before. One of which I distinctly remember was a blonde girl, skinny, wearing a dress made from my beach towel. She seemed to represent the sort of people who mimic what others hold in high regard. My beach towel had become a symbol of novelty and had been validated by a social circle. And here she was, wearing it.
Later on Barton fetched the towel that I left in the locker room. I could interpret this as Barton acting favorably towards me as a result of my renewed reputation. But this could also be interpreted as symbolic of a characteristic of our relationship. In a way, Barton is returning my novelty back to me. What that means in a practical sense could be varied; perhaps when my talent is spent, and I am without it, Barton may be the type to return it to me, in some rejuvenating function. In that way he is helpful to me.
It is worth mentioning that when Barton handed off the towel to me in the courtyard, in the distance was the skinny blond girl watching intently.
In the backyard, when Barton and I began to play football, I felt a great cheeriness inside me. I was happy to be validated again and consequently began to let down my guard with Barton. The manner in which I let my guard down and felt the full cheeriness within me was borderline reckless.
Then I ran into the snake, and then the other. And finally I was bitten. To me, it must mean that my over-indulgence will get the best of me; that if I do not retrain myself, reserve my emotions, that I will get bitten by the snake.