alice and the white rabbit

by Alice Mulford

I have a lot of dreams, most of them more than bizarre. I like talking about them with people, trying to figure out what they mean. My mother and I discuss dreams to great lengths. She’s the one who told me I shouldn’t recount my dreams before breakfast, because they might come true.

Last night, I dreamed that I was driving through my neighborhood back in Williamsburg. I was at the wheel, and I had my sisters in the car with me. Suddenly, several tall figures came out from the trees along the road, and I had to stop the car so I didn’t run over them. There were somewhere between ten and twenty of them, and they were all, as it turned out, old love interests… dressed in white rabbit costumes. The costumes were kind of scary – they made the boys much taller, and the rabbits’ eyes were big X’s, meaning, of course, that they were dead, and they looked bloody around the neck.

I locked the doors.

The bunny-boys surrounded my car, beating on it, trying to get in. I was more concerned for my sisters than for myself. I knew that if the men got in, they would attack my sisters, probably to spite me. As they pounded on the windows, they promised that they wouldn’t hurt us, that they just wanted to talk, that we were friends, that everything was fine.

I knew that it wasn’t.

This little bit of dream (there was a lot more to it, but it all happens in chapters, and is quite long and gets confusing) ended just as my sisters decided to open the doors and run.

I’m trying to search for some kind of meaning behind this. My store of dream knowledge says nothing about men in bunny suits. Cars usually signify control, though, and the fact that I’m driving means that I’m in charge of my life. All I can figure is that while I’m in control of my life, there are pieces of me that feel under attack by past decisions. My sisters in the car with me probably represent areas where I’m more vulnerable, and part of what is making me feel vulnerable lately has to do with my romantic life, which is where the old love interests come in.

As far as the bunny suits… Well, I’m just going to assume that this is a play on the Alice in Wonderland thing that always comes back to me… The White Rabbit ran around whining about how he was late. The boys are dead white bunnies. Clearly, I feel like I’m running out of time to accomplish something – either to find myself a proper husband, or to come to some kind of closure as far as being hurt or hurting others in romantic relationships.