Trying to help my brother out
Dreams about family members are always rather curious. This one didn’t raise anything particularly new, but it’s interesting that I can trace its meaning without too much difficulty. I was with my brother and we were running through empty streets. There were people coming, marching along the road, and if those people would find us, they’d kill us. I had to protect my brother. I was frightened. We couldn’t find anywhere indoors to hide, and everyone else had deserted the streets, so I dragged my brother to a park bench atop a small hill and we crouched down and hid behind it.
The marching people came, and they sent a lookout to have a nose around. I was hiding with my brother behind the bench, desperately willing the lookout not to see us. A dog ran up to my brother with a ball in its mouth, and it dropped the ball. The lookout saw the dog and then saw us. I recognized the lookout even before he’d seen me: it was Laurie Osbourne, another Bangkok blogger and all round nice guy. He saw both me and my brother, and while he should have reported this back to the others, he pretended like he hadn’t seen us and I was thankful. The marching people carried on and we were left alone.
Some time later, on another day I think, I returned to the same bench, looking for something, although I wasn’t sure what. I was looking for something I had left there. There was a large television screen set up behind the bench, and it was showing the marching people as they passed the spot where we had been hiding. I was afraid my brother and I would be caught on camera, but for some reason we weren’t there.
I think this dream has to do with my brother and his life. At the moment, he is in a lot of debt. I was thinking before I went to sleep that if I wanted to, I could pay off his debts, although this would leave me without much money at all. My mother said that he needs to learn from his mistakes, and I think this is true, but I can’t help but feel like he does need protecting. Laurie is someone I’d associate with kindness and openness. I was protecting my brother in the dream; it wasn’t about saving myself. Laurie’s kindness in not having us killed could represent a sort of kindness that I feel my brother could use right now, but that ultimately would be an easy way out for him. I sometimes feel like people are out to get my brother; he’s had a hard time over the years.
Returning to the same spot (without my brother) and not seeing myself on the TV screen might be because I don’t feel like I have actually helped him at all in recent years. Maybe I was looking for some evidence of my helping him, but I couldn’t find it.
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