Dream Log: Business and Anger in NYC

I dreamed I was living in NYC and working in midtown Manhattan at an import-export business.

I have often dreamed about being in NYC, both before and after living in Manhattan for a few years in the 1990's. Often, in these dreams, the city has not looked or sounded or smelled like any actual place on Earth, but last night's dream was much more realistic in that regard.

Some of the people I worked with in this import-export business were Orthodox Jewish men, with the side curls and the fringes for their prayers shawls and their heads always covered.

The part of the business I worked in was concerned mostly with keeping records. We did this partly with computers, but to a great degree we still used paper. And it seemed that some of the ways in which we treated these pieces of paper was somewhat ritualistic. It was hard to say how much of this was purely for the sake of ritual, or was actually efficient, or both, or neither.

The record-keeping part of the business where I worked was divided into two parts. One part faced the street, and then the part where I worked was farther into the building. We in our part had to walk through the other part any time we arrived to work or left. It was unclear whether the two record-keeping divisions actually belonged to two separate companies, or if one company divided the record-keeping section into two parts for some reason.

A young man named Michael who worked in the front section, whose appearance was not distinguished in any religious way, had rolled up a long receipt in a manner which was not the way we usually did it. We usually rolled such items starting at the top, so that the bottom, with the signatures, showed when we were done.

Michael reacted angrily to the criticism. Soon Michael and I were yelling at each other. We all closed up for the night and went outside, and Michael and I continued to escalate our verbal fight out on the sidewalk. Michael and I and a few other people from the business or businesses were going to fly to Tel Aviv on business, and as we walked toward our transportation to the airport, Michael and I went from yelling at each other to yelling and shoving. Michael screamed, "I'm going to kill you!"

I said to him: "Look at you!" He was an average-sized thin young man. I said, "Look at me!" I was about twice his size. I asked, "What are you going to kill me with?!"

Michael spluttered for a while, and then said, "Guns! Guns!" And he threw a couple of punches at me which missed, and I tried to get him into some sort of wrestling hold, and then our co-workers dragged us apart and took us separate ways.

I had one stop to make before the airport, to pick up my dog, Lucretia, at my apartment. Lucretia may have been a mutt. I'm not very knowledgeable about dog breeds. Lucretia looked like a smaller version of a German Shepherd, except that her fur was grey all over.

Next, we were at the airport, I, my dog and the people from my section who were going to Tel Aviv. Lucretia was a very good-natured dog, and being with her was calming me down.

It wasn't clear which airport we were at, JFK, LaGuardia or another one. We were in a section of the airport which mostly handled freight. Just as at the office, so here we had our own little terminal, and the guys who had their record-keeping section out by the street had a little terminal right next to ours. It wasn't clear whether we were taking the same flight as these other guys, or two separate flights. It was also unclear whether or not we owned our own plane or planes. Michael was already in their terminal when we showed up.

Michael saw me and looked away. I walked up to their terminal, told Lucretia to sit, and said, "Michael. Could I talk to you for just a minute? I just want to say one thing." I looked down at Lucretia, whom Michael had never met before this. "This is my dog, Lucretia. She's a good dog. Very gentle. She's never bitten anyone."

Michael approached.

I said, "They won't let me take her in the cabin with the people. She has to ride in a cage with the cargo. They say it doesn't tend to bother dogs very much. And she's a very even-tempered dog. So I'm probably a lot more upset about her being in a cage than she's going to be. If you hold out your hand and let her sniff it, she'll probably like you right away and be very happy to have you pet her. If you want to. You know. She won't lick your hand. That's one of the things I like about her. I don't like dogs slobbering all over me." Michael was petting Lucretia and starting to smile, and Lucretia's tail was thumping against the floor. "Anyway, all I wanted to say is that I can't remember what we were fighting about."