I had a pretty crazy dream the other night. As far as dreams go, on average, I think mine are consistently pretty crazy! But this one was the weirdest and most memorable one I have had in a long time! The first moment I recollect from the dream, I was standing in front of a mirror looking at my face. I saw I had a blackhead on my cheek. I leaned closer and poked at it a bit. Yep, pretty normal blackhead. I decided to squeeze out that waxy stuff collected in the pore; something I must admit getting great joy from. Blackheads are so much more fun, and less messy, than zits! Anyways!
I assumed the usual blackhead pinching position, placing the fingernails of my two pointer fingers on either side of my tiny nemesis. I pushed them together. At first, like any blackhead, a normal amount of latte colored wax squirted out. But then, almost immediately, the little squirt doubled, then tripled, then quadrupled in size! It got thicker and thicker and it just kept coming out! They best way to describe it (though disgusting) is it was the width and length of an average, heathly-sized, solid piece of poop. I know, pretty disgusting. And there I stood, for a few seconds, in complete shock, holding this long, thick, waxy, snake-like object that had been excorcized from my face.
I immediately pulled my cellphone out of my pocket and called my Mom (Right! Of course I did! Doesn’t everyone phone their mom first to tell her about disgusting bodily excretions?!), and the dream got progressively weirder as I excitedly went into a room full of friends to show them the wax snake. The one friend took it out of my hands and ended up smashing the wax snake totally flat, making a shawl and wearing it around her shoulders as a joke. I am not so sure what happened after that. But, besides my friend with the apparent fashion sense to turn even blackhead gunk into a stylish ensemble, the most memorable part of the dream was the relief I felt getting that junk out of my face.
I literally could feel a relief in my face from pain that had been there. The peculiar part is that I did not even know the pain was there before it was mitigated. I wasn’t aware my cheek was sore prios to squeezing out the record-breaking blackhead. I was numb to the pain. I didn’t feel it. Maybe I had gradually grown accustomed to it. But I was totally unaware of it. It was only after I was relieved of the waxy junk filling my cheek that I felt the relief of the lack of pain. The lack of pain felt good, even if I hadn’t realized it was there in the first place. I felt refreshed, alleviated, and lighter. I wondered how long that junk had been there, how I didn’t even notice the pain the junk was actually causing me, and how on earth it was possible for it to have built up to the level of being anaconda-sized excrement.
I have thought a lot about that dream. It think it is like life. As we go through life the junk, gunk, dirt, and mess (Though I know blackheads are actually caused by excess oils that have accumulated in the sebaceous gland’s duct, and they are not caused from dirt. Whatever!) get caught in our pores, most of the time unbeknownst to us. It builds up, and builds up, and certain situations and experiences are conducive to causing more build up. We don’t always see it building up right there under the surface, but it’s there. And it hurts, and is uncomfortable, whether we feel it or not. The build up may be so gradual we don’t feel it, or we may just be totally oblivious. We either become calloused to the pain, or possibly don’t even know of its existence. But it is up to us to be proactive if we want to feel that wonderful sense of relief. We have to find the spot, squeeze out the junk, and then we will feel the satisfaction of the lack of pain we were not even aware we were carrying around.
I guess the difference between blackheads and real life pain is, (according to Wikipedia) blackheads don’t have to be squeezed out and they can be left, but unsqueezed-out pain…I am pretty sure, if left unattended it grows and grows, becoming more and more painful.
Posted by capetownbrown 
