Saturday, December 15, 2012

The grim runner


Pounding, pounding. The grim runner is pounding the cement sidewalks around a school building, running joylessly and relentlessly, round and round. His clothes are the color of sackcloth, or damp dead leaves. His straight, longish hair flaps against his neck. He is young, late teens or early twenties.
    Behind him runs a fair-haired older woman in a lacy white dress. She seems to be trying to catch up with him, to get his attention. But he is locked in his own repetitive purpose. Pounding, pounding.
    I notice that his thighs and legs have grown amazingly wide. Is this muscle, from all this running? It’s wrong, not natural, ugly. Round and round the school, he is running still.

I woke from this dream at dawn with a sense of cool distance and detachment from the runner. But beyond this, of a world of pain and grieving.
    I immediately thought of the Newtown horror. Did I glimpse the shooter, as he is after killing himself? And perhaps his mother, running behind him? The woman in white lace had a tired, homely face, one the runner would probably know. If not his mother, is she a guide?
    I knew nothing of the shooter when I went to bed. I am told now that he was a geeky guy who even wore a pocket protector. Are those crazy leg muscles part of an attempt to transform himself into an avatar from a computer game, and live in that kind of reality? Or is the ballooning weight of his limbs part of his punishment, as he trudges round and round the place of his crime, on and on?
    

3 comments:

Patricia said...

I have a child who I work with who is now an awesome hugger. He use to go into these screaming painfilled fits and try and bite, or kick or punch me. Once he just rammed into my eye with his head and I walked around for a while with a black eye. When he was in painful movement mode I would sit behind him with my arms wrapped around him. I would breath myself into stillness and remember his eyes when he was not in pain. And remember the place of him that was a true human. I would not chase him, I would hold vigilance. I would wait for a shift in his screaming or muscle softening, then I would whisper "you will be all right". I don't know if it has been a whole year yet, but he no longer goes into screaming fits where he wants to hurt me or anything that is around him.

James Wilson said...

Who knows? Maybe your dream has a connection with the terrible shooting in Newtown.
After reading more and more information about the de man who has done this horrible thing it is possible to see some symbolic similarities with your dream.

In his schooldays people experienced him as very nervous and agitated. He always sat close to the door so he could quickly slip away at the end of the lesson. When other people approached him in the hallway of the school, he would press himself against the wall side, or walk the other way. He seemed to be alone and did not succeed to be a part of any group.

If this was my dream I could not help thinking that the way the grim runner acts in the dream, it reflects how the boy behaved during his school period. Always on the run.
Running joylessly every day every week to avoid (too much) contact with other people. Running around and around a school building (in the dream) instead of entering it and to be a part of it.
A part of the class, of the conversations, a part of the group.
The thighs and legs that had grown amazingly wide during the dream could symbolize the unbalanced growth of this person. Avoiding contact and running had such a big influence that the rest of his body (his person) was not able to develop well

If this was my dream, I would ask myself if this dream could reflect the emotional world of this person.

James Wilson said...

Hello Robert,
I just read in the paper that the police think that a 30-year-old teacher, Lauren Rousseau, was maybe the real target Adam Lanza was after.
Because he first took her car in the parking lot under fire and then went into the school building.
It made me wonder whether the fair haired person you saw in your dream looked a bit like her. Or if something else in your dream could refer to her.

Your description of her dress (white and lace) and her name Rousseau made me think off the France philosopher J.J. Rousseau. It made me very curious, do you remember parts from your dream that might refer to her?