A Post-Christmas Dream

Dreams can sometimes point the way.

It is the day after Christmas.  It had been a good day, spent with friends.  After a long hike in the park, and then drinking and eating too much, I landed in bed and fell into a deep slumber.

I awoke from a strange dream, the kind that jolts you into consciousness so abruptly that you remember every detail. I have had this kind of dream before, always set in different places and circumstances but always with the same common elements of anxiety and a realization I was lost.

In this dream, the earliest scene I recall is me wearing a suit and tie, as I did every day for 25 years in the tech industry. I was experiencing that mild anxiety familiar to all new employees but softened by an awareness I seemed to have a good rapport with my boss.  As I went through the motions of being at work, I was always by his side.  But it was not clear at all what we were trying to accomplish. 

I remember the question being asked in my dream mind, “What are we doing? What is our purpose?” It was obvious that others seemed to know, but I couldn’t figure it out.  There was lots of activity, people hurried from place to place, and orders were dispensed, but the purpose behind it all eluded me.

I found myself drifting away from the group with a vague feeling that the others, including my boss, had discovered the truth, that I didn’t know my job.  I felt vaguely excluded from the inner circle I had felt a part of before.  I found myself wandering around the office and then the building, curious but without any particular aim. Nothing seemed familiar.

The more I explored, the more expansive the building became, until I found myself inside a crowded indoor environment like a multistory shopping mall or a gigantic office building with bustling hallways, or perhaps a crowded and elaborately appointed lobby in a large hotel.  All of those possibilities seemed to be rolled into one mysterious place. 

I found myself in an elevator.  It had buttons for only three floors.  I pushed 2, then change my mind and pushed 3. I sensed the others in the elevator were annoyed with me for carelessly delaying them with my mistake.

When the doors opened, I was in a busy lobby in an office building, the kind you would find in any of the great cities in the world. At least that felt familiar.  I could see two large doors leading outside.  I decided I would step outside and get a sense of where I was, and how this building was situated in the world. The name of my company would surely be on the building, and that would remind me of my place and purpose for being there. I would then understand where I was and what I was supposed to be doing.

As soon as I stepped outside, I was lost.  I had a feeling I recall from my many trips to Tokyo, lost and disoriented on the crowded sidewalk surrounded by tall skyscrapers. Everything was unfamiliar and huge and intricate, but I could not comprehend any patterns to orient myself.  I could see nothing beyond my immediate view of the buildings in front of me, and as I moved, the old ones disappeared, and new ones appeared. The people around me spoke a language I did not understand. Asking for help from strangers was out.  What could I ask them, anyway?  Where was I? Where did I work? What was my job? Who did I know?  How could I get back to a place I could not name or describe?

Crowds of people were walking past me in every direction. They all seemed to have a purpose behind their movement, but I was standing there alone, aimless and confused.  I looked back toward where I came out onto the streets, but nothing was familiar so I could not retrace my steps.  Any memory of where I had been evaporated, the way trivial dreams vanish as soon as you wake. You are aware you dreamed something, but you just can’t recall what it was. Only the feelings evoked by it remain.

I began to explore the city, slowly walking along one sidewalk, and turning a corner only to find another unrecognizable scene.  I climbed some outdoor steps but that only led to a new street-level view.  All the while I was trying to take in my surroundings, instinctively thinking that if I could get to higher ground, I might orient myself, understand where I was and how to get back to familiar surroundings.  But the buildings were too tall. Each had names on their sides written in English, but none were familiar to me.

I was looking for a landmark or some other familiar place I could use to navigate by, but none could be found.  I thought to retrace my steps as a blind person might do; 15 steps back in this direction following the wall until you reach the corner, then turn to your right, etc.  But I had already forgotten how a got here.

As I wandered around looking for clues, for anything familiar, my anxiety grew. Each step I took only deepened my awareness I was lost, and I couldn’t seem to even recall where I’d been just a short time before. The more I wandered around trying to orient myself, the more I felt lost.  I was digging myself into a hole I could not escape.  I was approaching feelings of panic. There seemed to be no pathway leading back to my familiar world.  Then I woke up.

I am reading Jordan Peterson’s first book, Maps of Meaning.  In it, he describes our ability for planning and acting within a familiar environment. That is the reflex of our rational mind. We make plans, then act to further those plans, and get the expected results when operating within a familiar environment. In this environment, cause and effect are understood and predictable.  But we are also adapted to the unexpected and the unfamiliar. When we encounter the unknown, it triggers our “orienting reflex.” That part of us is suited to assessing and exploring the unknown part of our worlds. Humans have adapted one part of our brains to deal with the known world, and another part to deal with the unexpected, unknown world.

When encountering the unfamiliar, we first experience anxiety, because the unknown could be dangerous. If we determine we are not in immediate danger, or we know how to keep it at bay, our anxiety gives way to curiosity, and we begin to explore, learn, and adapt to the unexpected.  Eventually, we incorporate our new knowledge into our familiar and predictable worldview. 

We have a dual mind, one part adapted to making plans for the future, to achieving desired outcomes by acting in ways that further the achievement of those plans, and we experience the expected results from our actions.  But when we plan, and act in furtherance of those plans, but experience unexpected results, we realize there is a glitch in our worldview.  Actions taken shouldn’t produce unexpected results. If the results are a surprise, that confirms we must misunderstand something. We become disoriented and unsure how to proceed.

Acting within an unfamiliar world, where cause and effect don’t line up, might well make things worse, so we freeze. We look for danger, and sometimes we find it.  If we don’t, or we see how to keep it at bay, we begin to explore and learn about the chaos that has confronted us. When our known world betrays our expectations, we freeze, assess the danger, and then slowly explore this unfamiliar environment until we can make the unfamiliar known and understood. 

As a result of this process of exploration and learning, we expand our familiar view of the world as it once was and incorporate the unknown parts of the world that was once unfamiliar. This is how we survive the unexpected and unfamiliar, and make it part of our growing understanding of the world we operate in.

We plan and act, believing our actions will bring familiar and predictable results because we believe we understand how things work.  Let’s say you entrust your money to someone you believe has the skills and knowledge to invest it and make it grow.  You expected certain results within a range of possibilities. Your account statement says you are getting richer.  Then you decide you want to take your money back to use for some personal purpose, but discover you are broke.  The money you were told you had doesn’t exist.

You freeze.  Suddenly learning you are broke is a dangerous situation.  You have bills and family who are depending on you. What will happen next? You don’t know. But you are anxious that you may lose your home, not have enough to eat, and cannot live in the future you had so carefully planned. You slowly start assessing the damage, not unlike the person who regains consciousness after an accident, and as they come to, they assess their bodies to see if the arms and legs, fingers and toes still are attached and working.  Only then do they attempt to stand.

Imagine you discover the reason you are now broke is that the person you trusted took your money and spent it on themselves without telling you.  That is a betrayal of trust. The person you thought you knew turned out to be someone you didn’t know, someone capable of deception and dishonesty. Your anxiety turns to anger. You seek justice and restitution, and strong emotions arise from learning you have been deceived by your willingness to believe you understood the person you trusted, who would act with honesty and good faith.  That was the world you thought you knew, and now you learn your money was entrusted to a person you didn’t know, not really.

When you accept the fact that your trust has been betrayed, someone you once trusted acted with dishonesty and bad faith, you are angry not only with the villain but yourself. You feel foolish for not detecting the difference between the person you thought you knew, and the person you now see for who they are.

Mark Twain said, “It is easier for me to fool you than to convince you you’ve been fooled.”  That is because, even if we have a glimpse of the danger, we work hard to deny it to ourselves. After all, the acceptance of such a reality is so painful and filled with such anxiety and uncertainty, we prefer to delay judgment until we see more convincing evidence. We give the huckster more time for the hustle. 

But when the undeniable finally arrives, the impact is so profound, so troubling, it calls into question not only what you thought you knew about this person, but what you believe you know about other people, and almost everything else. If you can be such a fool about this, what else are you a fool about?  It upsets everything, you question everything.

The double whammy of losing trust in others and yourself can be overwhelming. Anyone who has been cheated on in a relationship knows this feeling.  Anyone who has had something precious stolen by a friend or family knows this feeling.  Anyone who has believed in a promise broken by someone you believed could be trusted knows this feeling.  Anyone who has, in one way or another, been stabbed in the back, knows this feeling.  This is how we experience betrayal.

When you finally know the score, when the world of unexpected betrayal is integrated into your familiar world, you are forever changed.  Your plans will always include the possibility of betrayal, and the possibility of misplaced trust in others.  Until you figure out how you are going to adapt, you feel lost and disoriented.  Eventually, in most cases, we emerge better prepared for the future, because our understanding of the world has been expanded to include dangers you now understand. Because of what you have learned, you are better equipped to plan, act, and succeed. Next time, you plan to see trouble coming long before it arrives before you place yourself in harm’s way.

But there are many ways to betray a trust, and when you experience betrayal in one way, others may find new ways to fool you.  Distrusting everyone is not a very happy or satisfying way to live. It is exhausting to distrust everyone, so we take better care to surround ourselves with people we trust, and we make sure of that by paying careful attention to what they say and do.

In the vast majority of our relationships, thankfully, we find that trust has been well placed.  We cannot live in a civilized world if everyone is a crook. Fortunately, most people are not.

But some people are, and when we learn that about a person, one thing we always do is tell others.  It is a civic duty to let others know about a person who cannot be trusted.  Such people are properly shunned so the rest of us can carry on with each other in good faith. Once a person is known to be dishonest, their reputation rarely recovers.  That is our adaptive response to crooks.

It is a strange kind of New Year’s Resolution, but this is how 2023 looks to me, sounding the alarm about betrayal, so the rest of us can move forward together in good faith.