I had a weird dream about T last night. I only remember some of it, but it makes very little sense to me so I thought I'd throw it at the PC hivemind since I can't ask T about it for another two weeks.

Background: this week is the ninth and last week of T's holiday. I'll still be on vacation and travelling abroad next week, however, so I'll miss my T appointments, and will have to pay the cancellation fee. I hate missing the appts but I don't mind the fee.

Last night I slept badly and woke up repeatedly, so I remember several different dreams. In one of them I was back with T, for my first appointment after the break, and he was telling me that I needed to pay yet another cancellation fee for an appointment I knew I hadn't missed, which made me kind of angry. Then I gave him the gift I'd made for him and he said he wanted to give me a hug, but he had to put some fabric over my head, first. (T does not hug me in real life. We shake hands but that's the only touch that has ever occurred.)

Around this point I woke up and was pretty confused. Should I just forget this and go on with my life or might there be a point to this dream, do you think? Thing is, at other times when I've dreamt about T it has been clear where the dreams came from, but this was just... random!

[Perna]

I am surprised that you have to pay a cancellation fee when you have given advance notice? I only had to pay if I gave less than 24 hours notice. It doesn't seem fair. He's not giving therapy while he's on vacation, whether you want to pay him or not.

That much of your dream seems almost clear to me, that you dreamed about cancellation fees and for an appointment you hadn't missed? Yes, it would make me angry too! Are you at all angry now, paying for a session while you're vacationing when he didn't have to during his holiday? When I get angry I can often get scared too, of my anger? The gift sounds like a good idea to "prove" I mean no harm, am not really angry (if only I could convince myself of that :-) I thought of a tablecloth with the fabric over your head, like you're a "thing", a fixture, and made safe to hug? Another thought was an Arab women's hijab?

If this were my dream, I would say that the fabric over the head thing would mean that i thought t would accept me more if i covered something up about myself. totally not the way i think i view therapy, but maybe in some ways i do if I'm honest with myself. I have just given myself something to think about.

[harvest moon]

I think that by him asking you to put a fabric on your head in order for him to hug you, means that you feel like you have to 'hide' some of your true thoughts and feelings in order to gain your T's love and acceptance. That, maybe, if you be open to him about your frustration or anger or disappointment (starting from the fee you have to pay, which I think serves more as a symbol of you feeling rejected for some reason, rather than you having an actual problem with it), he won't give you a hug, aka there will be some kind of rupture? He won't accept/do the holding of your negative feeling like he accepts your positive? Do you remember if he shows you the fabric he wants you to wear or is it yours? Does it have a specific pattern or color?

[Raging Quiet]

Is the fabric to hide you from him or him from you?

Thank you for your responses! They have given me a great deal to think about. As for the fabric in the dream, it was T's, and it was some kind of rough sack-cloth type fabric.

I really don't think I am angry about the cancellation fee. Since T does not charge his patients anything (he's paid by the county), I suspect that he has had people in the past just not show up for their sessions, and I'm guessing that is why he has this cancellation fee, which applies to all cancellations regardless of how far ahead they are made - it really is fair since he does this to all his patients. I don't exactly like having to pay for missing something I absolutely do not want to miss, but I don't think T is unreasonable.

[unaluna]

I would go with, somebody is "pulling the wool over (my) eyes". That is, the expression about trying to hide something from someone, or make it appear as something else? Or just cloud their vision, or judgment? Thats how life in my family was for me, growing up AND now! Its a struggle to see the truth, let alone try to live it. Im not sure, in your dream, who is pulling what wool over whose eyes - it could go so many ways - as you said in your previous post, the b&b owners treat their customers like long lost friends - maybe that touched you in some way. People closer to me - like at work - sometimes complained i treated strangers on the phone better than i did my daily coworkers. Which of course i learned from home.