1st Ave., beyond 622; "open" (to the outside) warehouses that don't exist. I wander through them, come upon a section that manufactures electronics. I am an unemployed (retired) ex-worker (from a different company.) The guy who runs this section, a "fringe" section at the edge of a larger, more legitimate (i.e., higher tech) area, is puzzling with his underlings (who are more like his equals) over a production problem. I kibitz, offering my meager help, which he accepts. But between us, we do not have a solution. The problem is technically above us, but he seems not to realize that I am unqualified. I walk down into the more advanced section where I am way over my head. Part of an elaborate set-up on a crowded table top falls over, a technological display or experiment set-up, or work project. I am responsible for the accident, although I hardly touched anything and the set-up was precarious to begin with; yet the onus of responsibility is on me, although there are no consequences (because I don't belong there anyway.) [It doesn't matter that I screwed up, because I didn't really belong in the jobs I was in. It was not my area of "expertise," although I pretended that it was, in order to keep the jobs.] A sort of play area is set up at the southern edge of this work area. Its purpose is to entertain/teach young retarded kids. I become involved briefly, but there is some question as to my qualifications, so I leave. [I'm not qualified as a psychologist either, except in research.] I walk up through the center aisle/street (between "buildings) to the north of the work sections, following a good-looking girl in a peach dress. She's aware that I'm following her, but my intent is not to follow her, but merely that I am going in the same direction as she; but she doesn't believe this. [Or I am lying to myself (in the dream) about my intent.] We walk out of the building complex into a woodsy area that is in the hills above Allegheny River Blvd between Sandy Creek and Nadine. She's heading toward the river. My intent is to go down to the Blvd and continue on toward the city. And yet, at the same time, I am following her with interest. I am interested in her sexually. (Or, I am empathizing with her projected experience, her wanting me to be interested in her. But her intent, whatever it is, is a part of me. It's my dream, after all, and she is a functional part of my psychology.) She turns back toward me and says (although she's a long distance away, perhaps several hundred yards, she speaks as if we are in a normal conversation) that I should stop following her. I tell her that I am not, that I just happen to be going in the same direction as she, but she doesn't believe me. As she approaches the river, a high cliff over which a small stream flows blocks my path after her. She is off down below, making her way through the sparse woods. I want to keep after her, but I hesitate at the edge of the heights. [I am following my anima, trying to get to the Self, ala Jung.] Several young people are at the rocks, sitting precariously on the edge. I sit too, but the rocks are loose, and I struggle to make my way backward away from the edge, knocking rocks off into the water below. These loose rocks don't seem to bother the younger people there, and they go about their socializing, all but oblivious to me. I make my way off to the south of the cliff, intending to work my way down through the woods beside it and catch up with the girl so that I can continue on to where I am heading, not following her. But instead, I end up in a large office, a room that is also outside, adjacent to a business area in Bloomfield. Desks are closely packed together and some kind of a high tech school is being run from here. This is the office area of the school. Someone, a young guy? or a secretary/girl type, has assumed that because I am here, I am applying for admission, and so they have begun the application process. I allow them to go on, and decide I will take advantage of any opportunity if one is presented. It turns out, initially, that I am not qualified, that in several highly technical areas I am sub-standard [continuation of the "over-the-head" theme], and I do not care, I am heading off to another purpose, i.e., following the girl [the jobs, whose only purpose was to accumulate money, although I did become sidetrack and forgot this purpose for quite a while, were just a means to an end, as was college/education itself], to get to another place (which turns out to be a college campus in Oakland, which I never get to [I never go back to school, although I'd planned and it and kept the fantasy alive for a long time, even to this day], but I will later supply the logic as if I had.) There are longs bands of gold-plated flexible circuits, as if they were encased in plastic like a SCSI buss, but they are not, they are free-standing, and as if they stretch out through the office/campus into the Oakland area, and these busses are bar graphs of areas in which I am deficient, as if these are the standards that outdistance me, as if my chart (no imagery) falls short of these bars/circuits. I am resigned to the fact that I will not be admitted, and I don't really care, because I am headed off elsewhere, only temporarily detained, interested. But the interest of several young, suited flunkies in me keeps me there. Although I do not measure up, yet still I am respected and they seem to want to bend the rules to admit me. A part of, but not the whole, rationale for this interest is that they need students, they need to fill their quotas, their classes are under-filled. They compete with the local college for students, and they recognize, despite my paper (electronic?) deficiencies, that I am superior material. They take their case to their bosses, who tentatively approve my acceptance. I appreciate their interest and attention, but I tell them I'll let them know. It seems I have been accepted by the college in Oakland, and by several other schools (at least one), and I must make a choice. [I have to decide what it is I want to do with my life from here on.] They begin to actively recruit me, wanting to know what it is that will motivate me to choose their school. I tell them that, more than anything, I want their attention, and that by having thus far given it in the way that they have, they are that much farther ahead. My intent is to keep them acting the way they are toward me, to form the habit, so that the attention will continue should I decide to enroll. But I do not make the decision immediately. I will take the few days that I have remaining before the enrollment period ends to check everything out to make certain my choice is right. I go off toward the east, at first heading down a very steep street at the south-east corner of the "office" (outside business) area, but it is too steep, and I find myself climbing down onto a ledge, trying to get to the street below, so I go back up and across a lawn toward the north and I find a street that runs parallel to the area (north-south) so I begin to cross it. It's a sort of covered street at this point, as if it enters a segment of roadway where the buildings on either side of the street are joined by a carport-like roof. A woman (chubby, housewife-ish) and kids in an SUV drive up, blocking my way. They are here to pick up someone. Me?
fai: The girl I am following, because I have failed to successfully follow her, stops and waits to talk to me. She wants to know why I am following her, but I tell her I am not. She doesn't believe me, but through our conversation, I point out to her that she is projecting, that it is she who wants me to follow her so much that she imagines it as the truth (or, vice versa, I am projecting, by pretending not to follow her when I am. What is this called? Mutual projection? Counter-projection?)
note: this was a very "global" dream, the later sections sort of "permeating" back into the earlier ones, in theme and content, as if they overlapped, but they didn't.