Dreaming Of Passports

I planned to spend my Spring Break in 2005 in Honduras, but as I made preparations to go, I discovered that I couldn’t find my passport anywhere.

Eventually, after some expense and quite a bit of stress, I was able to get a new passport in time to make my trip, but ever since, even thinking about passports makes me slightly nervous, and I have to check now and then to make sure that I still know where mine is.

Twice recently, I’ve even dreamed about traveling and not having my passport.

In one dream, I was in Greece, and was supposed to travel with some people from there to Egypt, but at the airport, I suddenly remembered that I had left my passport at home. I had to be left behind, which was disappointing (as was the fact that my wife didn’t choose to stay with me), but I remember that my main reaction was knowing exactly where in my apartment my passport was located and being very confused as to how I had made it all the way to Greece without my passport in the first place.

In the second dream, I think I was in Russia and was returning through a security checkpoint when I realized that, once again, I was without a passport. This was confusing again, because I had somehow managed to pass through the same checkpoint without my passport right before. The prospect of being stranded in Russia was more disconcerting to me than being left in Greece, and I was starting to get upset when, in desperation, I opened my wallet to search for alternate forms of identification.

Somewhat surprisingly, but to my great relief, my expired Harding University ID was good enough, and the Russian officials let me pass on through.

I knew I was holding onto that old ID for a reason.