Another dream and more restlessness

...and this dream was really scary.

I dreamt I had gone back to work.

In the dream, I was working for the state, doing something similar to what I had done in my most recent job. I was in an art supplies store, buying those glass bottles that attach to hobby-grade airbrushes. A guy walks in – someone whom, in real life, I went to college with and worked with maybe twenty years ago. In the dream, he has taken my old job and we're comparing notes.

The big picture, I think, is this: something is going on sort of under the surface with me, causing some stress, anxiety and so on. In addition to the dream with the tornado the other night – a sure sign that I have some unresolved issues in waking life – I've had a touch of depression, a general restlessness, and yesterday, a pretty seriously upset stomach.

I go back to what the Buddha taught, and can see that the source of this below-the-surface turmoil is attachment. All I have to do is figure out what the object of attachment is. I think I know the source, but I'm not sure.

Attachment obviously doesn't have to be to a physical object, of course. In fact, I wonder if we actually get attached to physical objects. I can say I'm attached to some item, but perhaps in reality I'm attached to something that object represents in my mind. One common case is that in which an item represents social status. But then one can look further and say, 'Am I attached to social status, or am I attached to something else social status brings?'

So you follow the attachment trail back to its source, which I suspect always ends up being something out of Maslow's heirarchy.

Well, here I am with an attachment which is causing me some inner disturbance, both psychological and physical. And although this dream might seem to point toward retirement as the source, I don't think that's it. Retirement may be giving me more time and freedom to be under the sway of attachment, but it's not the attachment itself.

And I think I know what the attachment is, but I have to emphasize think, because I'm not sure.

This is sort of like a detective story.