Thesis Dreams

I dreamed about my thesis last night. Or rather, about not writing my thesis.

For those who may not know, I have to write a thesis in order to obtain my masters of arts in liberal studies degree at Hollins University. It is the last thing I have to do. It must be at least 50 pages long and it must be completed in March.

It has been haunting me since I returned to school in February. So it is no wonder that now I dream about it.

In my dream, I visited someone named Mary Prophet, and she told me to go see Dr. Charles Fuller, the pastor at the chapel, because he would help me. (Local folks who have lived here for a while will recognize the name. A pastor at one of the churches in downtown Roanoke had that name; he used to do God's Minute or something like that on the radio. I have no idea why the name came to me in this dream.)

For the longest time I wandered around the Hollins campus trying to find the chapel, and along the way I realized the problem wasn't that I couldn't write, but that I was fearful of writing things that would bother other people, like if I wrote about something terrible I did as a teenager it would tip off my mother that I had done that bad thing, or what-have-you, and as I pondered this new revelation, I finally found the chapel.

A big burly man stopped me and asked me if I had an appointment to see Dr. Fuller. I said no, but Mary Prophet sent me. He bade me sit in the entryway on a very hard bench, and he disappeared and then came back. I told him he looked like a Gestapo policeman, and he folded his arms and said, "Hmmph."

Then a very small man tossing flowers behind his back came in, and the Gestapo man nodded and said there he is. And I was surprised because Dr. Fuller was absolutely crazy; he was like a nice version of Gollum (from Lord of the Rings), with a bit of Yoda (from Star Wars)thrown in for good measure, and he talked about his daffodils. A small child was also with him, a young boy about 9. The man prodded me forward, and Dr. Fuller looked at me expectantly, and I finally told him I was having trouble with my thesis.

"Smell the flowers!" Dr. Fuller cried, and he ran away. The small boy took my hand and led me toward the gate.

"Why doesn't anyone know about this? This isn't right," I asked the boy as he led me away. I was distressed that this man who was supposed to be helping me and other people was, for all intents and purposes, a lunatic.

"We have to keep our secrets," he said.

"But this isn't a good secret," I cried. "This hurts people."

And the boy nodded, shut the gate behind me, and I stood facing a daffodil-covered meadow at the edge of a forest.