Bob Dylan – "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" (1966)

Your therapist just knows what you need

But I know what you want

I’m old, and I think about dying from time to time.  But the fact that I’m going to die sooner rather than later isn’t the thing that worries me the most.

I’ll reveal what does worry me the most in the next 2 or 3 lines.  But today I’m going to tell you about a really strange dream I had recently.

I’m not going to describe my dream in detail.  Suffice it to say that it involved a water leak in an apartment or hotel or dormitory room – whatever it was, I don’t think I lived there – and in trying to find someone to fix the leak, I ended up locking myself out of the place without my cell phone.  

There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the building, so I ran outside in hopes of finding someone who could help me solve my predicament – and that’s when I woke up. 

Did I mention that I was naked when all of this was happening?  (That’s probably pretty significant.)

*     *     *     *     *

That night, I told one of the people who I play trivia with about my dream – she’s a psychotherapist, and I thought she might be able to interpret it for me.

“The details of the dream aren't important, although I find it interesting that you were trying to address a problem that wasn’t really your responsibility – because you didn't live there,” she told me.  “What matters is how you felt during the dream.  I assume that being locked out of the room with no phone and no clothes made you feel very vulnerable.”

“You can say that again,” I said.

“So what’s the thing in your life that’s hanging over your head and making you feel so anxious?  And if it’s not really your problem but someone else’s problem, why do you feel responsible for fixing it?” she continued.  “And here’s one other question for you – when you left the building, were you trying to find someone who could help you stop the leak, or were you just running away from the situation?”

I didn’t want to address her questions, so I tried to change the subject.  But she knew enough about me and my living situation to make some pretty good guesses about what might be bothering me.

I couldn’t wait for trivia to end so I could get the hell away from her and her questions.  

*     *     *     *     *

I thought about the dream and what the therapist had to say about it when I was driving home that night, and decided that I should have just kept my mouth shut.  I would have forgotten about the dream in a day or two if I had kept it to myself.  But after I shared it with her, she stirred up enough sh*t to give me bad dreams for a month.

Obviously, it’s much easier to ignore bad dreams than it is to face up to the issues that generated those dreams.  That’s been my strategy for most of my life.

I would advise you to do the same.  You may feel the need to get your bad dreams off your chest, but sharing them with a therapist is a big mistake.  They’re going to want to figure out why you’re having the dreams, and they know the right questions to ask to get to the bottom of things.  

That’s going to be an uncomfortable conversation.  A therapist might tell you that you need to have that conversation, but trust me – you don’t want to have it.  

Capisce?

*     *     *     *     *

The lines that open this post paraphrase these lines from the penultimate verse of Bob Dylan’s “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again”:

Your debutante just knows what you need

But I know what you want

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I think Dylan got it backward.  

Click here to listen to “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again.”

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.