Bloggers like to take Fun Tests, but now I have taken some which purport to be serious. The results were quite interesting.
According to these tests, I am less optimistic than I see myself to be, but more secure than I believe myself to be. Most fascinatingly, I am dissatisfied because although I have a career, and not just a job, what I want to pursue is a calling.
So say the tests. Since the results surprise me, not being what I would have come up with on my own, I am listening.
A question which arises is, do I want to be doing something else? The answer may be, no. It may be that I am treating it as a career–indeed, sometimes I treat it as a mere job–but I want to treat it as a calling.
Perhaps, this year, I shall do that. After all, careerism is one of the things I criticize in What Is A Scholar?
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Interesting. Though I didn’t really learn anything I didn’t already know. (Wonder what that means? That I’m self-actualized? That I’m stuck?) I’m quite happy overall, according to these tests. I see what I do as a calling. I’m more a leader than a team player. And I’m given to conflictual personal relationships (sigh) in that I’m willing to engage, but I have enough anxiety about it to generate some negative emotions. Duh. And what exactly do I do about that?
CS — what to do about that: get more secure, I think (according to them). I rated secure, and I am supposed to be good at relationships according to these tests, which of course does not explain certain things, but does explain others.
I rated very happy in the long term, less so in the immediate moment. This means: ADJUST immediate circumstances! A good idea.
The other interesting things the tests said I want a meaningful life first, a good life second, and a pleasant life third…and that my greatest strengths are creativity and appreciation of beauty. (I would have said intellect, analytical skills, and work ethic, but perhaps that is just because I was taught that you can’t make a living as an artist, and shouldn’t try.)
* * * * * *
Meanwhile, I have just had one of my famous dreams, and you were in it. I am famous for creative dreams, but have not had any too recently. I fell in love with a man who did not dream, and I caught the disease.
In my dream, you and I had traveled somewhere to meet and converse. We had these travel alarm clocks which could also play videos. One of your videos was of a very good MALE (unusual) fado singer in Lisbon, singing a song about the sad things which have happened to him and how it all doesn’t matter since at least he is in Lisbon. One of his lines was (in Portuguese, of course): “I fell in love with a tourist / who wanted nothing which could cause pain.”
We watched this because it was more interesting than the movie we had gone to see, at an independently owned art house. The owner of this movie theatre was there, and she was being followed around by her husband, although they were in the middle of a divorce.
Part of the reason it was just as much fun to watch our own music videos, as to watch the movie we had gone to see, was that the screen in the movie theater was particularly small. There were three other viewing rooms at the same theatre with larger screens, but the movie we had gone to see was on a very small screen. The owner kept saying it was large enough, but we were flashing our alarm clocks saying, our own screens are no smaller!
* * * * *
I realize this is an odd dream, and there was more of it too, which I do not remember. I am not sure what to make of it, but it was very vivid and I am sure it has meaning.
One (Jungian) technique for dream analysis is to consider that ALL the characters are oneself, or aspects of oneself.
From that point of view:
1. I (myself) go to meet you (also myself), for the purpose of seeing, sharing, and discussing creative things.
2. We find that what we have brought to discuss is in fact more interesting than the movie we go to see, which is on a very small screen [limitation/limited view]. The fact that the theatre owner (another aspect of myself) wants us to be happy with the view she offers, but we are not.
3. The theatre owner (as we know, an aspect of myself) is divorcing her husband (another aspect of myself), who is following her around.
4. The fado singer (another aspect of myself) says he fell in love with someone who wanted to take no risks, and came to grief because of it, but that in the end it does not matter, because he is still in the city he loves.
5. We have these alarm clocks on which we have captured amazing images.
Does anyone else have some useful ideas? (Jokes are OK but I am more interested in serious comments — I believe in dreams!)
One thing that occurs to me in the Jungian vein is that the stuff you brought with you to meet with you is better than the stuff you tried to seek out elsewhere (at the art house) . Yes?
Another, related, way to look at the dream might involve you believing subconsciously that we are both aspects of the same psychic personna.
Finally, some believe that you can visit people in your dreams or that we could meet “somewhere” on another plane while we’re both dreaming. To compare notes? About what?
Yes – the things we brought with us were better, this stood out. Also, it is interesting that we wanted to look at things, compare notes, as it were. On screens – as on the blogs!
Same psychic persona, maybe.
And yes, I believe it is possible to visit people in dreams. I have had people who are dead visit me in dreams. I don’t think seeing someone in a dream always means you’re visiting them, or they you, though. But we could certainly compare notes – again, as on the blogs!
Shortly after my son died, I dreamed of him striding through a village with a woman friend of mine who was living in England at the time. They were deep in discussion and didn’t see me “watching” them. I didn’t feel as if I was part of the sequence, just observing their “meeting.” She had very high psychic energy. Your dream reminded me.
And I agree, we compare notes on a number of levels through blogging.