In the dream am a traveller. I arrive in a foreign city. The setting is medieval. I don’t have a specific reason for being there, but I tell myself: ‘If am here it’s because they need me.’

A little while later am delivering a baby via C-section. Outside with a huge crowd around me who watch in fascination, but also outrage, because apparently surgery is blasphemy in this town. Opening the woman’s belly stinks and I wince several times and think: ‘In the future surgeons will wear masks and maybe they won’t smell it then.’

I get some gold coins as a reward, but the mayor of the town takes me to the city center for a chat and tell tell me it’s actually an ambush.

Several guys dressed as Black Petes start mocking me and teasing me and they are after the gold. I now see am in the city of Aalst, where I was born, a city known for its vulgarity, systemic depression and cynicism.

Instead of fighting the Black Petes or running away, I grab one of them and give him the gold coins, pressing them against his chest.

I continue talking to the mayor who is smirking and fascinated that I didn’t try to fight or flee.

I tell him: ‘I can learn how to play chess from these people.’

Then I want to focus on explaining medicine to the mayor, even though he’s cheerfully set me up to lose my reward.

I do feel pain and anger over having to part with the gold, but fighting them was not really possible, there were too many of them, and in fleeing I would have lost my dignity. I also want to show them that they are foolish for wanting the gold and that it’s actually meaningless by just handing it over to them. I secretly also hope they start fighting amongst each other, because now only one of them has all the gold. I suspect he’s not going to want to share the gold, so it’s like I passed a smoking hot piece of coal on to him.

Meaning:

I am indeed in a foreign land, not because I love this land, but because they had some use for me here. The people I help either don’t fully realize I help them or push back when I try to free them from their demons.

Reward? It’s small and barely worth it, I do the work more for the work’s sake.

The Black Petes? All the people around me who chase nothing but superficial pleasure, pay raises at work and wear masks all the time.

The mayor?

The mayor represents the predator system in which we all operate. The system that is set up to kill our humanity and keep us running in our cage.

Why do I enjoy talking to the monster? Because at least the monster knows what is going on, even though it’s evil.

The mayor is fascinated by me, because I suffer under him, but stick to my own little joy anyway. ‘I can learn how to play chess’, I still want to help, and I still want to pass on truth.

Meaning that I would rather talk to the Matthew Millers, the Anthony Blinkens and even the Netanyahus in the world, than around people who don’t see the system. I prefer real talk, even with evil, over shallow talk with people coasting along in a sick culture, satisfied with the simple pleasures it offers and proud of making choices that make their prison inside this toxic culture even more secure and stiffling.

What you can learn from it?

Don’t be like one of my clients who is stuck in an entirely sexless marriage with a woman who regularly insults him and destroys his manhood with his consent, who told me he doesn’t have time to analyze his dreams, he’s too busy as it is with his daily life. That man has comitted suicide of the soul.

Over the weekend I accidentally caught a glimpse of him, his awfully oppressive wife and his smileless son, and I think the horror I saw in their pretend happy family dynamic is part of why I dreamt this dream. The man didn’t want out, he embraced the very poison that made him drink too much alcohol, reach for junk food and kept him chasing more money and bizarre strategies to get his wife to have sex with him (something she never ever will, because he is no longer man to her).

My dream felt like a mixture of a parable and a nightmare.

It makes perfect sense to me and thanks to it, even this morning, I have reacted differently in dealing with certain people who behave like those Black Petes or the crowd watching me deliver the baby.

So I urge you to take your dreams seriously. If I can get one of you to regularly jot down what you are dreaming immediately after dreaming then this post was worth it.