I dreamt that I was with a group of five or six White people in their seventies. We were all staying in a luxury hotel in Italy somewhere. One of the old men said, "This is the life! Traveling the world and eating turkey pasta!" This "turkey pasta" was in fact Chiayi turkey rice, a Taiwanese dish which we had indeed been eating everywhere we went.
One of the old women said, "Today is Thanksgiving, so the food will be a little different."
"Are you sure?" I said. "It's April."
"It's still Thanksgiving," she said, "which is appropriate because, you know, I do feel thankful!"
"We've been eating turkey every day," I said. “What's going to be different today?"
"It'll be a whole roasted turkey with mashed potatoes. Just an ordinary Thanksgiving dinner, but interpreted by this chef it's sure to be something truly otherworldly."
The chef set out the turkey and mashed potatoes, which really did look and smell uncommonly good. Before we ate, everyone took out and lit a cigarette, the idea being that someone would give a little speech and then everyone would take a drag at the same time -- like a toast, only with tobacco rather than alcohol. I was the only one who didn't have a cig.
"Don't you smoke?" said one of the old men in surprise.
"No," I said. "Young people generally don't, you know." (They were so old that I was a "young person" in comparison.)
I've mentioned before that, despite having no smoking experience other than the beekeeping variety, I've had quite a lot of dreams about smoking. So it's about time I finally had a dream about not smoking!
My first thought upon waking was this this probably had something to do with the Blue-Green Abelard theme, since Abelard has recently been identified with a bird, and turkey has the same etymology as turquoise.
9 comments:
Turkey comment as promised:
Are you at all, even in the slightest, concerned that you have self-identified as a Turkey and here are discussing a Thanksgiving Feast involving a Roast Turkey prepared in an 'otherworldly' way? Thanksgiving is great, but not if you are the Turkey. If you are the Turkey, it's pretty awful.
The connection with a Turkey is interesting given thoughts I've had in the past when you've mentioned your utter and complete trust in Clair-Joan-whoever. You've actually commented on this trust multiple times, and when you have, I've thought of what has been called "The Turkey Problem", thinking of you as potentially as the Turkey, so it is interesting to read of you now identifying with one.
The Turkey Problem was popularized by Nassim Taleb in his book "The Black Swan" (another black-feathered bird). Nassim actually took the idea from Bertrand Russell, who used a chicken (and is an example I can relate to, since on our farm we keep chickens, and I do cull them every two years).
Here is how Taleb describes the Problem:
"Consider a turkey that is fed every day, every single feeding will firm up the bird’s belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race ‘looking out for its best interests,’ as a politician would say. On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief."
Anyway, just be careful about invitations to Thanksgiving dinners if you are
a Turkey.
In terms of said Turkey, while you connected the Abelard with the Flood, you then took off and gravitated toward the figure of Noah.
The Flood, or the cause of it, was really Pharazon's, though. It was his Flood. Noah just survived it.
Tolkien makes the same connection between Pharazon's Flood and Noah, placing Elendil as a Noachian figure, as he and the Faithful survived the Flood in their ships while the rest of Numenor drowned.
When have I ever self-identified as a turkey? Or did you just mean the indirect link via Blue-Green Abelard?
My trust of Joan is based on direct spiritual discernment, not on an observed pattern of behavior which I expect to continue. It’s possible that I have discerned incorrectly, but it’s not an example of the problem illustrated by Russell.
In other settings where the implications were more positive for you, you would have taken the Blue-Green Abelard/ Turquoise/ Turkey sync and run with it. Since it isn't so positive, it is now an indirect link. You've run with far more indirect than that.
Well, you explained the the syncs led you to Joan, and you trust Joan, and therefore the syncs, if I remember correctly. So, yes, I would say patterns do factor in, as well as discernment.
You wrote of that interesting dream involving the green book, with the title Narrative Reasoning, in which you quoted Turnus from the Aeneid. Here is what you wrote:
'I dreamed I was in my study and heard a voice declaiming — “like an old-fashioned actor,” I thought — “Glory of the sky, who brought you down to me, cloudborne to earth?”
It’s a line I know well, from Book IX of the Aeneid, the words of Turnus addressing the goddess Iris. Too awestruck at the sight of this heavenly messenger to wait for an answer to his very important question, Turnus rashly vows, “I’ll obey this great presage, no matter who you are who call me.” In fact, Iris has been sent by an enemy, and the presage leads Turnus to his death.'
Turnus also had a direct spiritual discernment, but he discerned wrong. So, you can debate about whether Russell's inference problem applies to you or not, but you get my point, I am sure.
Fair enough. It just took me a second to make the connection. I actually word-searched my blog for turkey trying to find what you were talking about before I figured it out. Since I was one of the people eating turkey in the dream, it didn't occur to me that the turkey could be me. But of course, as we've discussed before, you can't always assume that the point-of-view character in a dream represents yourself.
I agree that if the turkey represents me, the old people in the dream must be something pretty sinister.
Want another take? The turkey isn't a direct representation. In being a dream of not smoking after so many instances of smoking dreams, the whole roast turkey may indicate a positive change or turn around after however long with the shredded turkey rice.
I'm not sure what reminded me of March's sph[i/y]nx comments (and I had to dig for them), but in the second Austin Powers movie, Dr. Evil tells his diminutive clone: "Mini-Me, no, we don't gnaw on our kitty." In the third movie (spoilers for the unaware), Mini-Me is the first villain to do a heel-face turn, helping Austin infiltrate Dr. Evil's base.
narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2025/03/when-only-goblins-are-out.html (comments)
youtube.com/watch?v=uki7KGFFuyw
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeelFaceTurn
"Cold turkey" is an expression commonly used in connection with quitting smoking.
A Roast Turkey symbolizing a Cold Turkey totally makes sense... I guess. Maybe only in the inverted or reversed world of Mr. Mxyzptlk? Since Leo pointed this tendency out, do you realize when you invert things like this? I mean, changing a hot, roast turkey and tying it to a cold turkey is a really spot on example (unless the roast turkey was served to you cold, I suppose).
Yes, and who knows from what perspective the dream is from, you could be the Turkey, the observer non-smoker, or both at the same time, honestly. In my view, the fact that the Turkey you had been eating up until that point was prepared in a Taiwanese fashion, even though you were in "Italy", and the fact that you do live in Taiwan seems to further link you with the symbolism of the Turkey.
It may be that these smokers have been feeding off of you, as it were, for some time now. Your mention of the seniority or age of your travelling cohort relative to yourself brings to mind C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters and the behavior of the hierarchy of devils in this regard, specifically with Screwtape being anxious to devour Wormwood at the end.
Or it could be closer to WG's more positive spin. That would definitely be better.
One unsolved riddle is why the dream’s “Thanksgiving” is in April. I dreamt it in May, and of course the real Thanksgiving is in November.
Good point. April is associated with Aries and Mars, and those Red symbols could be relevant given everything else that has come up.
The etymology itself isn't clear, but "to open" is one meaning, and the month is associated with spring and new beginnings (which could be a positive thing, lest anyone accuse me of now always being negative, a charge I am in fact guilty of, unfortunately). Strangely, I noted that it is possibly linked with Aphrodite, which could be interesting. The goddess of love, beauty, and sex. You had that dream of Taylor Swift singing some song that only had the phrase "It's Xavier", but in a way that made it sound like It's Sex Savior. Maybe something there?
That is also interesting because in your dream, Swift was with the Cow Tools Dancers. Italy, where you were in April for Thanksgiving, is a word that means "land of calves". Place where the Calves are led to? Led from? Hard to tell.
Italy catches my attention because in checking my notes, two days after your dream, I also dreamed of Italy (May 7). I was going on a business trip, having apparently just been named to a position called "Secretary of State". I was brand new in the role, and I didn't know what I was doing.
I found myself on the phone with a woman in Italy who I had some questions for, but she replied that I would be in Italy in person on Tuesday, and we could cover things then. I was surprised we would be in Italy, as I was aware of other stops on our trip, but not that one. I confirmed with my boss that Italy was indeed on the itinerary. One of my questions for the woman involved market research (I knew we sold a product, but I had no idea what it was or who we sold it to) and whether she had materials that might help me understand the market better and what niches to focus on. She replied she had all of the required materials.
Before waking up, I suddenly became very concerned that I might not have the right clothes to wear for a trip to Italy.
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