Irresponsibility Toward Adolescents
7/7/81 ( / )
I am supervising a bunch of kids overnight. We are on some kind of field trip. I am giving a seminar on imagery for pain treatment. They don’t like what I was saying and get bored. They won’t go to sleep. At one point I leave them to go somewhere else. (I think I wanted to get away.) Something bad happens to them while I am gone. Some sort of cart on rails runs away down a hill toward where they are sleeping. It doesn’t do any damage. I feel responsible and negligent. I am attracted to an older girl in the group. She ends up sleeping with one of the guys. One of the boys is belligerant and disrespectful.
Comment: I feel that I am not doing a very good job supervising the kids at Steppingstone.
Preference Predictions
Most Accepting: kids
Least Accepting: Dream Self
Most preferred character: older girl
Most rejected character: train
Most preferred action: leaving them
Most rejected action: runs away
Most preferred feeling: attracted
Most rejected feeling: belligerant, disrespectful
Sociomatrix Commentary
Dream Self: My interests are not always practical to immediate needs. I don’t like the way I feel in this dream. The kids are difficult. They don’t appreciate me. I am irresponsible. I am taking on more than I should or need to.
Adolescents: We’re tough, and we’ll do whatever we want to do. We don’t like him. He is boring. The jerk left us and we almost got killed! But we did want him to leave.
Train Cars : He makes a lousy supervisor. I don’t mind those kids, but I nearly hit them. I don’t like running away uncontrolled. I could get hurt. He should feel responsible.
Girl: He’s an OK supervisor. He won’t give us any grief. I’m glad he likes me, but he’s too old and square. I don’t care about much. I’m just here for what I can get.
Dream Commentary
If you could change this dream in any way that you wanted, as long as it respected the rights of all fellow dream group members, how would you change it?
Adolescents: If we did something fun, like hiking, it would be better. He could show us how to camp and rock climb. Maybe sail.
Train Cars : Yeah. Then they wouldn’t be anywhere near me. That way I couldn’t inadvertantly hurt them.
Girl: I would like to hike or garden or build something.
Dream Self : I agree. Good idea. We need to be doing some sort of outward bound work program. Too much trouble in the city.
Dreamage
I am taking a group of adolescents I supervise on a camping expedition. We do a lot of nature study as we hike. There’s also rock climbing, which is challenging and exciting for them. A train goes by far below in the valley.
Waking Commentary
If you were this dreamer and were dealing with his waking issues – money, relationships, fears, career choices, physical health, spiritual development – would you do anything differently? If so, what?
Adolescents: Work outdoors is a natural supervisor. Let it do the work for you.
Train Cars: Just like them, you get into problems with self-esteem, laziness, and lust when you have time on your hands. Keep busy in natural settings doing work outdoors. It’s good for you!
Girl: Agreed
Dream Self: I need to problem solve how I can get these kids doing outdoor work projects; it will help me as well as them. The problem is that somebody is always working, and we have to have coverage. I do feel trapped. I can’t even garden outside because we need to have coverage inside at all times.
Action Plan
Problem solve with staff M T W TH F S S
Sociogram Commentary
Irresponsible forces are in ascendency. Dream Self feels powerless. There do not seem to be any nurturing elements; if there are, they are neutralized. A basic antagonism destroys intrasocial harmony and self-esteem. This opposition is much stronger in action than it is in feeling or assumed identity. Fear of loss of control is unstated but basic. It creates the opposition of the train running away, on the one hand, and “no damage” on the other. I fear that I will lose control of the kids. Personally, I try hard to maintain control of my sex drive, but boredom, lust, and fear of loss of control combine to undermine my; efforts. The work situation is merely a mirror. If a sacrament is “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace,” then perhaps it is a sacrilege: “”an outward and visible sign of an inward and base karma.”
Actual Preferences
Most Accepting: girl
Least Accepting: Dream Self •
Most preferred character: Girl •
Most rejected character:
Most preferred action: no damage
Most rejected action: runs away •
Most preferred feeling:
Most rejected feeling: bored
3 of 6: 50%
Not all dream group members are listed. Dream Sociometry is not exhaustive in its polling of opinions, but it does attempt to acquire a representative sample of group preferences. “No damage” is probably a feeling element in disguise: relief. If so, some sort of tension in this life issue exists between boredom, belligerancy, and disrespect on the one hand and relief on the other. Such tensions maintain the disharmonies and block the resolution of the issue.
Dream Self and Adolescents are both neutral toward themselves, indicating serious fundamental self esteem problems for both protagonist and antagonists. As Cayce said, life is a continuing process of meeting self. Although these opposing energy systems view life very differently, they are essentially the same from the perspective of the energy system as a whole. ad guy is bad. He seems to be no worse than Dream Self.