Psychic Surgery Dreaming

I’m lying in my bed without any covers on.  The shades are drawn and in the dim light I notice there are people I don’t know casually standing in the room, some looking at me.  I’m not afraid or even concerned about them, but I am a little nervous about something.  There’s something wrong with me, and I turn to the right to see a familiar face.  There’s a doctor here, though you wouldn’t know that by his comfy couch-potato attire.  He’s got a kindly face, and looks vaguely like Walter Matthau.  He’s operated on me once before, though I don’t remember for what, and I’m perfectly comfortable with him, relieved in fact.  Whatever ills me is bad and I’ve got a reasonable amount of trust that he can fix me.  

I’m thinking about this as I get up and go to the bathroom.  I figure I’d better do that before the procedure.  As I return to the bed and lie down, Amanda appears holding a roll of burgundy cloth that’s about four inches wide.  She ties one end to the bed post by her pillow and then works the ribbon of cloth around the two posts at the end of the bed.  There’s worry on her face, but not panic.  I figure that she’s also comforted by the fact that the doctor has returned to treat me.  

I turn my head to look at the doctor and realize he’s chatting with my father.  My mother is nearby, and she and Dad look at ease.  The doc radiates calm and an easy charm.  He notices that Amanda has finished and steps over to me and I pull up my tee shirt so that he can have a look.  He’s examining the lower right of my rib cage, and I hear him mumbling to himself.  I hear the word “tumor.”  I turn to my Dad and ask if we were able to provide the doctor with the tools he’ll need, especially the scalpel.  Dad says no, we didn’t have a scalpel, and I feel embarrassed and ashamed, as if a houseguest discovered that we were out of toothpaste.  I say that I feel terribly that he’ll have to use a steak knife, and I look for Amanda to ask her if she knows where an Exacto knife might be.  The doctor softly tells me not to worry, and my worries immediately ebb.  I realize that this surgery is somehow different, and that it doesn’t really matter what he uses.  

The good doctor reaches for a large syringe containing a rusty red and slightly textured fluid, and he explains that it’s a general anesthetic.  He sticks me and I feel nothing at all, then rests the syringe against my forearm, and in couple of seconds later it lazily rolls off, but the needle bends like a piece of electrical wire and he gently rests it on my arm again.  I feel the drug work quickly as my body becomes very relaxed and I close my eyes.

And I open them again and I’m awake and in my real bed with a sense of well-being that lasts all day.