What happens when one is held captive by the mud of messiness? We try to understand sloppiness as a defense against overwhelming emotions, ongoing enmeshment in the primal maternal matrix, a regression to a younger and less differentiated self, and a tendency to overvalue objects as compensation for an inadequate ability to symbolize.   The dream: I am swimming in an indoor public pool with others when waves begin to occur for no apparent or antecedent reason. I am in a pool that shouldn’t have waves. As the waves begin to bob me around, the water level rises dramatically, quickly. The water reaches nearly to the top of a cinderblock retaining wall that is protecting a sunny, sacred green forest glade with a shrine far down below. Another person I don’t recognize, also male about my age begins to chip away at the retaining wall, cracking, crumbling it until it gives way. Darkness rushes in violently, and I awake to see myself in the third person floating in dank, dark blue, murky water that is endless in form and size. A graphic overlay of five hearts (much like a Zelda video game’s heart display) is shown on top of me as I float, alive but ultimately devoured by the flood.