The seminal disinformation was lost.
All that remains is the transaction.

This phrase came into my mind as I tried to make sense of a weird dream I had this evening.

It was in a strange city, part New York, part Washington. It mostly took place at some sort of museum or grand gathering place on the West Side of Central Park. Yet the feeling of the building was of a Washingtonian ambassadorial mansion, with wide sweeping staircases.

There had been a party inside. During the early parts of the dream I was at the party, yet the detailed memories of the party departed before the dream ended. I have vague recollections of being upstairs. Like the city and the building, the party seemed to be drawn from many sources. It was partly a black tie event, like an opening at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, partly some sort of political event with overtones of ambassadors gathering, or perhaps an after the inauguration party, and partly a party from my high school years at the ABC house.

ABC is A Better Chance. It was a program at high school years ago, where students from poor neighborhoods came to live at the ABC house and go to our local high school. When Deval Patrick started running for Governor in Massachusetts, I wrote a blog post about the ABC program. As I think about the dream, my thoughts go from the ABC house to Deval Patrick, and ultimately to Barack Obama

The folks at the party were mostly grown up versions of people I knew from elementary school and college.

One woman borrowed my cellhone. Another my wallet. They were both former high school classmates. I was left with nothing as I waited for them to return. Kate Heichler was there. As I waited for the women with my belongings to return, I explained to her what was going on. Later, as I continued to wait, Kate explained the details to Amy who was passing by.

For people who are not regular readers of this blog, Kate Heichler is an old friend of mine from when I first lived in New York City, close to thirty years ago. We went to the same church and with the folks from that church went to many events together. She has since become a priest. Her first day as a seminarian was at Christ Church, Bethany was also my first day at Christ Church, Bethany, two days after Kim’s mother died. This was a little over a year before Kim and I got married. Since then, Kate has become priest of a church in Stamford, a few months before we moved out of Stamford. Amy is my ex-wife. She went to the same church as Kate and I.

People came and went in horse drawn carriages, and eventually, my wallet was returned and I found myself in possession of a large balloon tired bicycle.

There was a wicker basket on the front of the bicycle. Inside the basket was a manila folder. The folder contained important information, some sort of important documents on standard sized paper. It also contained a ten dollar bill. I was still waiting for the woman with my cellphone to return. I was waiting with many people to depart from the parking circle in front of the mansion.

I turned to talk with another person, and found that the folder was now missing. It was then that the phrase came to mind:

The seminal disinformation was lost.
All that remains is the transaction.

I’m not sure what that seminal disinformation was. I suspect it was one of the documents in the manila folder. The ten dollars was gone, but at least I still had the bike. A taxicab, also waiting to depart cut, in front of me. The driver said angry words at me, which I mostly ignored. I was more interested in the discussion with other people waiting, with trying to get my cellphone, and with waiting for things to open up so everyone could leave.

My mind became stuck on the phrase,

The seminal disinformation was lost.
All that remains is the transaction.

I tossed and turned, half awake, and finally came down stairs to record as much of the dream as possible.

Before I return to bed, I glance at my emails and delete a bit of spam. One message was about the U.S. destroying information about detainees at Guantanamo. A couple other emails are about Avery’s graduation.

Avery Doninger is the young woman who graduated last night from Lewis Mills High School in Burlington. She has been embroiled in a court case with the school district over a blog entry she wrote at home one evening. There had been a battle between the students and the administration over scheduling for a concert at the school. Avery and some of her classmates sent out emails to encourage parents to contact the school administration about the issue. The school administration reacted negatively and told Avery and others that the concert would be cancelled. Avery called the administration douchebags and encouraged others to contact the school administration to piss them off even more. Avery was barred from running for class office, but the students wrote her name in anyway, and she won on the write-in vote. The school refused to recognize the results of the election. Things escalated and it has ended up being fought out in the Federal Courts.

Some of the recent issues around the case surround emails that the Principal sent which violated school policies and Federal laws and resulted in a two-day suspension without pay. Emails obtained by Freedom of Information requests indicate that this has been a recurring pattern.

Was this some of the seminal disinformation that was lost? Was the information about Guantanamo some of the seminal disinformation that was lost? Was it something combination of both or something else?

I also received several emails from the Group Psychotherapy mailing list I participate in. One of my interests is in Social Dreaming Matrices, which takes the Group Relations tradition and adds the sharing of dreams, not so much from dream interpretation stance, but more from exploring the associations that people have to each others dreams and learning from these associations.

There is a lot on this dream to associate to, and I am most curious about others reactions.

I wrote much of this upon waking up and stumbling downstairs. I went back to bed. My strange dreams returned. In my subsequent dreams, there were some mass executions taking place. People were gathered in a large stadium and notable people were being executed first. I was too be executed, and my elder brother was supposed to execute me. I stared him in the eyes and he flinched, unable to kill me. I ended up being let off on some sort of double jeopardy clause.

As I think about this dream segment, I thought about our retaining a lawyer to file for bankruptcy and the financial difficulties my brother has gone through. I thought of a discussion at a party last night, where the hostess spoke about an opportunity she had to meet a wild tiger that she felt was attempting to hypnotize her. There is plenty more to unpack on this, as well as long posts to write about our financial situation. Yet,

The seminal disinformation was lost.
All that remains is the transaction.