Bad Dream 195 -- Shaving off My Goatee

In my dream, I am shaving -- which for me is a two-step process.  One to cut the length of the hair in my goatee so that it is shorter and of even length overall and the other to shave off all the protruding hair around the goatee and up to my sideburns.  This second part is a bit tricky as I try to clearly define the edges of the goatee without cutting the hair of the goatee itself.

As the dream starts, I am engaged in this defining part of the process and have decided that I don't have to look at myself in the mirror to do that.  And because I'm not looking at my reflection, I cut off a considerable amount of goatee hair.  It only takes a half second of lost concentration for this to happen.  And it happened.  

Looking in the mirror, it's obvious to me that I can't compensate the razor's intrusion into my goatee by shaving off the hair on the opposite side.  It would look truly weird to do so.

So I have no real choice but to shave off the entire goatee -- a solution which doesn't bother me that much, as I am now curious as to what my face looks like without any facial hair.  (Now that I'm writing this, I realize I might have saved the mustache, but that didn't occur to me in the dream.  And I think that if I had thought of it, I would have shaved the mustache off anyway.)

There's a "time lapse" in the dream, whereby the process of removing what was left of the goatee is removed.  One moment I have my goatee and the next moment it's gone.

Looking at my now-naked face, I am surprised as to how much younger I look without the goatee.  In part, that's because the wrinkles in my face are either gone completely or are a lot less prominent.  I now have the face of someone who is 40 years old or younger.  

I'm quite pleased.

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It is apparent to me that this dream reflects my feelings on discovering some old love letters written to me by a woman roughly 55 years ago.  I came across the letters completely by accident -- and had no idea I had kept them.  

But the effect of the letters has been profound on my feelings about this girl -- feelings that I had obviously simply set aside or forgotten or suppressed or whatever.  That the feelings were a complete surprise,  And I cherish these renewed feelings.

She and I got along (my recollection) beautifully for months or maybe a year or two.  I don't recall.  And I don't recall the details of our break-up -- just that I was angry at something she did.  And from where I am and who I am now, I'm afraid that the break-up was completely my fault and that I might have hurt her in the process.  

I am now committed to try and re-establish some relationship with her -- if I can find her.  I only recall that she was a student at Queens College in Kingston, Ontario at the time.  

I realize the result of that search might seriously damage my relationship with Deb, but I tell myself this desire to try and find her would likely just fester.  And the odds of locating her are remote in any case.

But I take the meaning of my dream to be that the search offers a healthy rejuvenation.  

It says here...  

Bad Dream 194 -- Not Ready to Grade the Test

In my dream, I am in a classroom situation.  I am a student along with the rest of the class, but I am also one of three students given the special (duty? honor? responsibility?) of grading the tests of all the other students.  Each one of the three of us will grade the tests of one-third of the students who took the exam.  This means, of course, that the instructor has enough faith in us that the three of us will get an "A" grade on the exam.

The exam has just finished, and the students' test papers are being collected.

The exam asked questions about a famous work of literature.  It might have been something like The Odyssey or possibly Shakespeare or similar.  

Some of the students are chatting away, now that the test is over, concerning the questions and their approach to answering them.  Comments are being made like "I really feel the entire plot pivots on the fact that..." or "Did you think that so-and-so in the story was telling the truth about..."

And I realize that I don't know anything about the questions or opinions being voiced by my fellow students.  Which means that I am totally unable to grade the test papers that would be my responsibility to grade.  (That is, the papers of one-third of all the students.)

I recall that I had read the assigned piece of literature, but I had only read it once and obviously hadn't read it carefully enough to answer any of the questions being asked on the exam.  

I have a choice of trying to fake it for the moment and then try to figure out how to handle the situation once I have the test papers in-hand and have escaped from the classroom -- or simply confessing to the fact that I couldn't grade the tests.  And I choose the latter course.

While most of the students (and the instructor) were in the room and chatting away, I get everyone's attention and told them of my own inadequacy to grade the papers.  The room got very quiet and a heavy feeling of disbelief came over everyone.  "How could Randy have done such an irresponsible thing?" "What do you suppose the instructor's going to do?"  "So who's going to grade my paper?  I thought I did really well on the exam!"  The other students left the room -- some of them glaring at me and some of them giving me a look of pity.  

I feel terrible that I had let everyone down, but okay that I had done the right thing and allowed the instructor to reassign the papers I was to grade -- and the everything would go okay.  As far as the test results.  But that my fellow students would remember my screw-up for a very long time.  

So what do I do now?