Lehi has a nightmare: mists of darkness, an unknown river, suspicious fruit, obnoxious people, and what looks like the World Trade Center—Laman interprets the dream and sees the deep-seated anxieties and guilt pangs of his father—Never trust voices that tell you to get out of town.
AND it came to pass that we had not been many days in the valley of Lemuel beside the river Laman when my father spake unto us again, saying: Behold, I have dreamed a dream, or in other words, I have seen a vision.
2 Now behold, I, Laman, did wink unto the daughters of Ishmael, and in my best stage whisper did say: What did I tell you! Pack your bags! 3 But 10 and behold, the latest dream of my father was a complete surprise, for this time we were not commanded to return unto Jerusalem; yea, this dream, or whatever, was a real humdinger.
4 Now I, Laman, do not give a full account of the dream of my father, for I cannot even remember my own dreams, except the one I have had twice concerning one of the daughters of Ishmael, neither can I recall half the things in the dream of my father, which was very [24] confusing, for it was filled with mists of darkness and rivers of waters and throngs of people and spacious fields and amber waves of grain, with purple mountains above fruited plains.
5 But behold, I will give you the highlights of the dream, as nearly as I recall. My father, as his dream opened, was lost in a dark and dreary wilderness for the space of many hours; yea, and Lemuel did say that he had recently dreamed this part of the dream himself, except that he had not been asleep.
6 And it came to pass that my father beheld a large field and a tree laden with some sort of white fruit, which he ate without even washing, neither did he know what variety it was; nevertheless, he did call unto my mother and my brothers, Nephi and Sam, that they might eat also; and behold, they did come unto him and did eat.
7 And it came to pass that my father yelled at me, and at Lemuel also, as he frequently did; but behold, we would not come, for there was a river of water between us and we could not swim.
8 Then my father beheld a metal rod, of brass I think, running along the path leading to the tree, and bunches of people were pressing forward, shoving and pushing; yea, even tho there was only one tree, nobody thought to queue up; but behold, a cloud of smog suddenly rolled in; yea, it was a real pea souper which thinned out the crowd considerable, for a whole mess of them let go of the rod of brass and lost their chance for a taste of the unknown fruit.
9 And it came to pass that my father spied a humongous building beyond the river, which was probably the source of the smog, and it was jammed full of people who were pointing their fingers and making other obscene gestures and laughing at those who were eating the suspicious fruit.
10 And Lehi beheld many other things which I have forgotten and cannot remember, for he must have been dreaming most of the night.
11 Now behold, after telling everybody about his dream, my father did speak somewhat harshly unto me, and unto Lemuel also, for he feared that we should be cast off from the presence of the Lord just because we would not partake of the fruit in his dream.
12 Now I, Laman, was annoyed by this, and I did complain unto my father, saying that it was his dream and not mine, for heaven's sake; yea, if I were to dream that Lemuel stole one of my camels, I would not go to him to gripe about what he did in my dream, although now that I think about it, Lemuel was probably the one who did nick one of my camels that turned up missing last spring.
13 And behold, I did begin to see that my brother Nephi, and also Sam, did think that they were better than me, and Lemuel also, just because they did scarf down the white figs, or whatever, and we did not.
14 Now behold, I, Laman, will give you my own interpretation of the dream of my father, for dreams are easy to understand if you read between the lines; [25] yea, as Lemuel did say, and it was just beautiful the way he did put it: Our deepest worries and anxieties and hangups are revealed through metaphors of the unconscious mind.
15 Wherefore, the dark and dreary wilderness is as plain as the nose on your face, for it is the miserable terrain we had been slogging thru for many days; yea, it was not always dark, but it was nearly always dreary.
16 Now the tree laden with fruit is as simple as pie, for it is your basic wish fulfillment; for behold, my father had been without fruit for months; yea, and he did often chide me, and my brother Lemuel also, because of our fruitless efforts; wherefore, fruit was uppermost in his mind; yea, and as Lemuel did remind me, from the time we were little our father did always force us to eat weird, high-fiber fruits and vegetables, so even in his dreams he was concerned about our intake of ruffage.
17 Yea, my father knew well that I, and Lemuel also, did swim like unto a rock, and still he did bid us come unto the tree, tho we stood across the river of waters; and behold, Nephi and Sam did not have to paddle for it, which shows that my father did always favor Nephi, and also Sam.
18 Now behold, I did see an even darker side to this dream; yea, could not the river of waters represent the river Laman, named after me; wherefore, did not Lehi subconsciously hope to see us both drown because he did not believe in his many dreams?
19 And I did confide unto Lemuel that Nephi did also wish to drown us, for he had often spoken about how Moses drowned the armies of Faro in the Red Sea, and I did see that Nephi was using transference; and behold, he was also hoping that his older brothers would drown and leave him to be the uncontested head camel.
20 But behold, Lemuel did say that I was becoming paranoid.
21 Now the rod of brass was a piece of cake, for it did clearly symbolize the obsession of Lehi with the plates of brass; wherefore, he did believe that everyone desired to cling to them; yea, those who did wander off and were lost in the midst of darkness and did not hold fast to the rod represent people who refuse to turn in their four-generation group sheets.
22 And behold, the great and spacious building is clearly downtown Jerusalem, for city people will always laugh at rubes who think they can sashay off into the wilderness without even a map or at bumpkins who can't even remember to take along their gold and silver and precious things like credit cards; wherefore, my father did hide his guilt and embarrassment about leaving his comfortable home and nice neighborhood and subjecting his family to life on the road; yea, it was classic denial.
23 Now I, Laman, have written a more or less complete interpretation of the dream in my secret diary; but behold, my brother Lemuel did say that all this inscribing was just a waste [26] of time anyway, for nobody would give a hoot about any of our dreams or about our gallivanting in the wilderness, neither did he like to be reminded of all our troubles, and especially the odious trip in Nephi's boat.
24 But behold, I get ahead of my story.
