Patient
I'm outside my school. It's an orange building with wings, a kind of bat-like extensions under the roofs. There are two red doors. One says Entree and the other said Sortie. The windows are barred, with iron bars. There are people sitting on the roofs. I have no idea what floor we are on. The people sitting on the rooves are very still. They are doing nothing.
I had a patient who was a philosopher. I told him about this dream, and he said:
"There are two kinds of interpretations for dreams.
One can see a red door and not see the color red, or one can't."
I felt that the dream was clearly a dream about something else, but what? What could it possibly be about? I forgot about it.
Later, after some time, I had another patient who was also a philosopher. I told him the dream.
"Red door", he said, "That means nothing. A red door is a door that is not green or blue or any other color. It is the color of nothing."
I felt that this was wrong. A red door is a red door, whether it's also orange or not.
Later still, I asked around to see if anyone had any interpretation for the dream.
No one did. It seemed the dream was irremediably ambiguous, or that noone had ever dreamed of a red door before.
I went home, but at the subway station I had a new dream: my mother was standing on the stairs of our apartment building. I ran up to her. She was crouched over, huddled, scared, as if of a threat. She said:
"Wipe those eyes, please. Please wipe those eyes."
I was not quite sure what this dream meant, but I knew it had something to do with my mother, and that was all I really care about for the moment. It also took place on the day that my mother died, though naturally that wasn't known at the time.
I had yet another patient who was also a philosopher. I asked him his interpretation of my dream about the red door.
His answer was brief:
"That is a dream about the separation of mind from body."