In spite of my best intentions, I don’t always live up to the potential I have, as shown in this dream.

I was outside in my neighborhood. But the neighborhood was different from my actual one.  It was more suburban and established.  The streets were lined with stately trees and pretty, middle-class homes.  I had an errand to run and drove over in my truck to the next street to do it.  In the meantime, my husband and other family members stood in the road and waited for me.  We seemed to be having some get-together with them where we were working together, accomplishing a goal.  My husband called me and told me to buy a lottery ticket for all of us while doing my errand.  To do so, I needed to stop at the store.  But I was concentrating on what I needed to do and forgot.  I drove home and through the middle of the family as they stood and waited.  There was an envelope on the street that I was supposed to put the lottery ticket in as I drove over it.  It was indicated by a large white arrow drawn on the street.  As soon as I drove over the envelope I remembered I had forgotten to buy the ticket.  I told my husband and kept driving, back around the block to the store.  But I forgot again. I came back to the street I lived on and stopped over the envelope.  I told my husband, “I forgot again!”  He just looked at me and said, “Don’t worry about it.  You can just buy into the lottery pot my aunt is doing.”  This made me happy as it was something I wanted to do.

Significant symbols:

Truck-One’s self, one’s work, one’s current situation

Family-relationships with the people featured

Store-a place to pick up a new idea, possibility, fulfilling a need

Neighborhood-the overall atmosphere surrounding the issue

Lottery ticket-taking a risk to obtain something of value in a new experience

Envelope-the arrival of a new idea, an opportunity, a communication, or an insight

Aunt-for me, she is representative of someone who is very family oriented, very helpful towards others, but also very opinionated (as in, we should be doing this or we should be doing that as a family)

 
In this dream, my husband can represent himself.  The family could be his actual family or people that I would consider family because of how I feel about them or ideals/beliefs we have in common.  Part of the clue as to who the family represents is in how they appear.  Here, I am not seeing a familiar face, so I must conclude these are people I have something in common with and not actual family. I have something personal I am working on for myself as represented by my performing an errand that doesn’t involve the others.  In the process, my husband (who also represents logic for me) wants me to invest in a new opportunity which could bring something of value to the group that I have something in common with. But I am so intent on what I am trying to accomplish for myself, that I keep missing the opportunity logic says I should be taking.  Finally, “logic” tells me to invest in an alternative opportunity as represented by my husband’s aunt.  Instead of an opportunity I take on myself, I invest in an opportunity that someone else leads but which is very helpful to others.  This actually makes me happy, as I take less responsibility and it seems more fun.

At first, I was thinking this had to do with my husband’s family and an upcoming holiday.  But that didn’t make sense considering the circumstances and people.  Then I had a conversation with my husband last night which finally brought the dream into focus.  I told him about something that I like to work on that I hope is helpful to others,  but even if it wasn’t, I would still do it.  He wants me to make a business of it.  I already tried this once and had no luck.  Now he would like me to try again. Logically, it is a good idea.  But I’m not sure if I should be doing that particular thing right now, even though the imagery in the dream clearly indicates there are people who would benefit from me doing it.  Even if I don’t do exactly what he suggests, there is a second alternative that will accomplish the same mission, I just wouldn’t be in charge of it.  But it would still be helpful to others if it is successful.  And I would probably like it better.  I will have to think about it.