The reason is different every time, but the end result is the same.
In one of the dreams, a tour bus I’m on breaks down; we’re taken to a restaurant with a huge buffet so we can eat while we wait for repairs. A different time, we are stranded in a storm right outside the White House, so we’re allowed unlimited access to the presidential kitchens for refreshment until the storm passes. Another night we’re taken to a school cafeteria that bizarrely serves buffet-style.
Different reasons for being there, but every time my dreams take me to a buffet.
In each dream, I’m among the very last to enter. Everyone else from my group has already chosen their food; they sit around long tables or round tables, laughing with their friends as they eat.
I don’t immediately dig into the food in these dreams. Instead I wander among the tables, looking at what others have chosen. Each person eats from a plate that perpetually refills itself. No one finishes. Nothing is lacking. I glance over their succulent choices, mentally noting what to select for myself when I finally get to the food.
After wandering around for moments or hours in the time-stretching logic of the dream, I make my way to the buffet line. That’s misleading. In each of these dreams, the buffet snakes among several rooms, each the size of a church. Tables and racks and shelves and coolers of food are arranged…but I can’t even begin to choose because I can’t find a plate.
An enormous buffet and I don’t have a plate. Figures.
Eventually I find some means of conveyance for my food. In one dream, I pick up napkins. In another, I use small paper cups. But never yet have I managed to find the sparkling white plates that everyone else uses. Bet the plates are even warmed for those other lucky bastards. So armed with napkins, tiny cups and (as a last resort) my hands, I begin looking for food, especially the delicious dishes I’ve seen my fellow travelers enjoying.
But when I approach each table or rack or arrangement of food, I find it all destroyed. Nothing remains but crumbs and squalor. Nothing is in any sort of order; one night I thought I’d content myself with a simple baked potato, but they were wrecked and broken and the sour cream was mixed in with the ice-cream.
In these dreams, I scrape together a parody of a meal from the other people’s leavings. It’s something, but I’m never actually satisfied. I wake up annoyed.
Hm. I’m not really adept at dream analysis. I have no clue what this means. No idea whatsoever. Odd though that I’ve dreamed essentially the same thing so many times. I wonder what to make of it?
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Congratulations to Quixotic, who really should have a blog. He’s my choice as winner for the contest below.
There were so many amazing entries–thanks everyone!
