Shower in the Open

Ah, the classic shower out in the open dream. Refreshing. Almost as good as the toilet out in the open dream. I've had a variety of these dreams over the years. I'm not an exhibitionist - no - I'm stressed out in these dreams. Stupid shower in the open!

It's funny how sometimes you don't remember a dream when you first wake up, but sometime throughout the day or morning you see or do something that triggers a memory of a dream. Not entirely unlike that episode of Star Trek where members of the crew were being taken from the ship and didn't know it. They were reminded of their off-ship experience by random objects on the ship that evoked an odd emotion of fear, prompting them to discuss their common experiences and re-create the conditions of their experiences together on the holodeck. This blog is like my holodeck. I love Star Trek.

Anyway, what triggered my memory this morning was applying conditioner to my hair in the shower. Actually, it was squirting the conditioner into my hand. I looked at the blob of goo and thought, "why do I remember using conditioner so recently?". It was because I had used it in my dream, in an outdoor shower. Fun.

I think I was on vacation, as I often seem to be in my dreams. I don't know who I was with or where we were, but it was a big city and I think it was warm. We were with friends, possibly Marc and Alana, mimicking our Japan trip from real life, and we were at our hotel. There were two showers and one was engaged, so I used the second.

It was outdoors by a small wall. The wall was curved and only came up to about my waist. I remember showering next to the wall in plain sight of the sidewalk about 20 feet away. I hunched down so that I was at least behind the wall entirely, though people who were walking in the nearby courtyard could still see me. I was moving all around to see if there was any place I could stand where I wasn't seen by people. There did not seem to be such a place.

I gave up on this awful shower after putting conditioner in my hair. I went back inside to seek out (new life and new civilization...) the other shower and remember complaining about that outside shower to some people. Someone - a boy - was trying to tell me that the outdoor shower wasn't that bad. I got mad at him and said that's because he was a boy, he wasn't exactly getting the same reception from the public as a naked lady. It was true; every man passing by had ogled and/or called out in a rude fashion. I guess I don't really blame them - who showers outside?