Baby, It's Cold Out There

Cappy Sue, of America's Heartland, writes:


Hey Lana, here is how the dream went.


We had all gathered at a reunion of high school people but there was another celebration going on of people who all worked for the same company. The place was a ski resort so everything was happening in the snow.


Your dream is long and complicated, so I will interpret different elements of it, one at a time. That it takes place in the winter, at a ski resort, carries two meanings. The first is that you're visiting a cold, desolate part of your psyche, one which has been in hibernation, so to speak. Also, snow is pure and clean - especially at a ski resort, where fresh snow falls every night. This is you visiting a part of yourself that has been uninvited, before, and lay dormant, until now: your latent homosexuality.


There was a horrible scream and when we ran out to see what was happening there was blood all over the snow and a man was lying there with his face mostly lobbed off. He was near dead barely, moving. His face though was still animated and rubbery trying to move and talk on the ground.

This part of your dream is about trauma - the trauma of your awakening to your surroundings. The blood this man has shed covers the once-pure snow: this is your subconscious telling you that this pure, untouched part of your psyche is no longer untouched. you're visiting it in your dream and, what has been seen, cannot be unseen. This may seem scary, but it's ultimately a good thing. Seeing for the first time is hard - it may even hurt - but it means you're not blind to your true self, anymore. While you see this man as being nearly dead, the fact is, he's just coming alive. Wake up, Cappy: you're a lesbian, and there's no turning back.


I had a little girl with me and she was mine which is weird in real life I have no kids. She was three I never saw her face but she slept across my shoulder the entire time and she was sick. A doctor tried to help but said we would just have to wait for it to pass because it was the flu.

You think of yourself as childless but the fact is, your inner child is with you always, and this dream is all about that inner child. The child you carry with you always? She's just another manifestation of the man who has come to life in the snow. This section of the dream if where you're trying to address what you see about your real self as being unhealthy. Your inner child is a Babydyke, and there's not a damned thing wrong with that. Get over it!


The first time when the guy got mutilated he had been kind of sketchy and the theory being floated around was it was done by a jealous romantic interest. Then two more bodies showed up one girl was still alive but never saw her attacker. She was missing her nose and most of her mouth. The other was a woman who was missing her face from the eyeballs up and most of her hair. Her eye balls were looking around on the ground at us.

The mutilated guy, who we've already established represents your latent lesbian tendencies, has been hurt by a woman he loved, but it was an unhealthy love. This is so gay, it's not funny. You've clearly been crossed by a woman. In fact, this portion of your dreams reveals that the object of your affection has left behind a whole string of unhealthy relationships with women: and this haunts you. It happens. It doesn't mean you have to spend your whole life pretending you love men! Why are these bodies missing crucial parts of their faces? Because you know, deep, down inside, that until you admit you're gay, you're incomplete.


A few more got hit and one was a boy. What made us suspect him was that his parts were not moving when cut off. When we checked him we found the knife that matched with those kinds of cuts covered in blood in his coat pocket. He then admitted he had sliced the side of his own face off as well to avoid detection. A couple of the people who had loss loved ones to his stuff started beating him but we ended up putting him in a cabin that I think was for storage as it had barred windows and stuff I guess to keep bears out.

You've attributed all sorts of problems in your life to your inherent homosexuality, and decided to lock this part of yourself away. But is it really for safe keeping (storage) or as punishment? It seems clear to me that this locking up is punitive: you're punishing yourself by not being the lesbian we both know you to be.


The place got hit with more snow so we all battened down the hatches and stayed in the inn for a couple of days. It was horrible seeing the infections starting and what not on the faces of the couple of the people who were still alive. Then I saw a person I knew and she was humming a song and holding her face. It seemed he had started to cut her but then heard the song and stopped and she had just now stopped cowering and come out of the room she had been in for the past two days.

More snow means you're clearly afraid that you're heading on path that means only more desolation and isolation. And this is not healthy. Infections grow and fester unless we treat them. The more you cover up an infected wound, the more opportunities bacteria have to thrive. This part of your dream points directly to your desire to stop this suppression of your sexuality and "come out of the room" you've been hiding in for so long. Come play with us, Cappy Sue, forever and ever!


This is when his mother said she wanted to put him down as there was no hope he would ever be anything but a vicious killer. Arguments started on both sides but in general they all said no we wait for the cops. Well I disagreed and agreed to help her.

I don't think the mother in this dream represents your real mother. It is more of an inner, evil, self-loathing voice with which you're involved in an ongoing dialogue. You're second-guessing yourself, convincing yourself that being gay is wrong and that this part of yourself should be "put down." Don't do it, Cappy! Fly your freak flag with pride!



I left my little girl sitting with my friend coloring while we went out to kill this woman's son. She climbed up on the roof of the cabin he was in. I went to the front and started laughing as loud and obnoxious as I could muster through the window pressing my face to it and just enraging him. He had said when we locked him up that he did not like the way the faces looked when the laughed and that was why he cut them up. Any how then I worked off a few bars and broke the glass really freaking him out and getting him into a frenzy. The idea he would get so enraged he would just come right at me making it easier to kill him. I broke the chain off the door and ran back a few feet and he came out just as planned. His mother jumped off the roof onto him grabbed his head and pulled it back and I slit his throat. I woke up just when I felt his blood hit my face.

This is a terrifying ending to a dream, because it's all about you abandoning your inner, lesbian child, and taking steps to kill your true self. And it's a bloody murder, indeed! But, here's the thing, Cappy: while you may have cut this fellow's throat, you've also broken through the bars of his prison. He's free! And you know who he is: your lesbian alter-ego. This carpet-munching cat is out of the bag, and there's no turning back.


Not only are you a lesbian, but this dream is really crazy. Crazy lesbians do really, really well out there, so you'll be fine. In fact, supposedly sane lesbians will fight tooth and nail to date a woman as nutty as you are. You'll probably end up being the next Ellen Degeneres.

Make That Four Pair of Prada Loafers

Harriet H., of the U.K. writes:

British people aren't homosexual Last night I dreamt I had sex with Andrew Garfield. He had his shoes on.

To dream about feet is to dream about a paradox: because, although physically lower and further from the heavens than any other part of the human body, our feet are thought of as both unholy, but also pure, true, and the most grounded, real part of who we are - like an untarnished baby.  In your dream, you're engaging in sexual intercourse with a man who wears his shoes throughout coitus. The fact that he's covered his feet illustrates two things, both of which refer directly to the paradox: 1) Andrew Garfield is hiding his true self under a pair of shoes. Even in the most intimate act, he feels unable to reveal his true self. 2) Andrew Garfield views his true identity as something unclean and base - even ungodly.

Andrew Garfield represents the quintessential British male. Your dream reveals your true feelings: that all English men are a little bit gay.

Oh, and there's also this:

Please Keep Hands Off The Doors

Gerard H., of Plainfield, VT writes:

My dream is set in an anonymous city sort of like New York but not New York. The overwhelming feeling is of desolation – a gray palette, lots of steel and glass, unhappy faces. 

I’m entering a subway station and as I get close to the turnstile I can hear a train approaching. I’m struggling to find my fare-card, but I do, just in time. In this unfamiliar station, though, I run down to the wrong platform. I look over and see the train starting to enter the station and run (against foot-traffic) up the stairs, over to the other stairway, and down to the other platform, just in time to hear the tell-tale bing-bong, and see the doors closing. The train slowly moves out of the station, and from the faces of my fellow passengers, I can tell it will be a long wait before the next train arrives. There’s nowhere to sit, of course.

Trains and tunnels, tunnels and trains? This dream is almost obscene. In your dream you're like Raquel Welch in Fantastic Voyage, except you're not floating around someone's blood stream, trying to cure them of physical ills: you're floating around your own psyche during the act of male/female penetration sex which, as the dream is screaming out to you, is actually quite depressing and bleak ("a gray palette," "The overwhelming feeling is of desolation.") You have a fare card, which you've obviously used in the past, but you have trouble accessing it and, even when you do, and gain entry, the place and situation are foreign to you. This isn't because you've never been intimate with women - quite the opposite -   it's just something that doesn't really sit right with you and makes you feel as if you're delving into a place that is completely strange, and not in a good way, either. Your getting to the wrong platform, and then scurrying to catch the right train is a reference to your efforts to find the right woman who can make this commute successful. But it's not a commute into Midtown Manhattan you're embarking on; it's a journey to the REAL Gerard: Queer-as-a-three-dollar-bill Gerard!

Your dream is riddled with self-loathing and shame. It's no accident the action takes place underground. 

The missed train, the long wait for the next one, and there being nowhere to sit as you wait? Isn't it obvious? This is your subconscious telling you two things: 1) You're gay, dude, and the train to Heteroville no longer makes local stops and 2) It's standing room, only, because you're not alone in your vain attempt to live as a straight man in the hopes that you'll somehow be "fixed." The world is full of other people, living their lives like Sisyphus and never getting anywhere 

You're gay - stop fighting it and take the bus, already!

Does this come in a size 5?

Melissa B., currently of Middle America, writes:

Dear Gay Agenda,

I have a recurring theme in many of my dreams: I need a new outfit and there is a store I want to go to to buy it, but I can't access the store. I can't remember how to get there or it is closed or there is some other thing impeding my desire to shop. This store has super cute clothes and good prices. what does this mean?

As the saying goes, "clothes make the man." In this case, clothes make the woman. What we wear on the outside is often a window into what we are on the inside. Your dream is about your desire to dress up in a way that you find most pleasing, and which suits you in every way. You're tired of the old suit of clothes you've been wearing and you "need a new outfit." You can only do this by shopping at the right store - the one with the cute clothes and the good prices. This dream is about your subconscious need to do away with the tired, old suit of heterosexuality you've been wearing for so long: it's old and tattered and, let's be honest, it makes your ass look huge! You're ready for an outfit that reflects who your are and accentuates your lesbian attributes. Every time you try to get to the right store - the magical Sapphic shop, if you will - something gets in your way. What is this something, Melissa? I suspect it's the false persona you've created for the world - the persona of a "normal," heterosexual woman. That's not a clever ensemble, girl - it's a straitjacket, with a chastity belt built right in. You're a lesbian: start dressing like one.

Emotional Baggage Check

Gina L. of Boston, MA. writes:

I have this dream, or variations of it quite often. I'm in an airport, usually O'Hare, and something has gone wrong with my ticket. I repeatedly try to call home but can't dial the number properly, nor can I get an operator's assistant. I storm off to the news stand and buy a bunch of magazines. The titles vary, but there's one constant: The New Republic. What does this mean?

An airport is a place we find ourselves when we are headed somewhere. Your dream places you at an airport to illustrate that you are trying to move forward - but you're immobilized, because "something has gone wrong with your ticket." This is your subconscious telling you that the path you've always believed has been right for you is, in fact, very WRONG for you. Your attempted - and failed - efforts to call home for assistance represent your efforts to rely on the tried and true. In this case, the tried and true would be heterosexual relationships with men, which you can no longer access because you can't seem to dial the number properly due to an inability to work the phone: you don't even know what to do with the telephone, just as you don't really know what to do with male genitalia.  You're even unable to get an operator's assistance. This represents your many efforts to find the right man to make things work, and your failure in these efforts. Your second and final course of action is getting a bunch of magazines, which represents your efforts to intellectualize your sexual identity dilemna, but being a lesbian is nothing you can read your way out of, Gina.  Deep down, you know this to be true, which is why the one constant in this recurring dream is The New Republic. You thought it referred to the magazine, didn't you? It's actually a reference to Star Wars and the triumph of good (Lesbian) over evil (Breeder.)

You're a lesbian. Why else would you dream about being at an airport named after Butch O'Hare?

A Stern Lesson

Kristine P.A. of Los Angeles, CA writes:

Back when Howard Stern's radio show first became a TV show, too, I had a dream about him. I dreamed that he was performing oral sex on me while while having intercourse with me at the same time. I wondered if he was double jointed. I wasn't even a Howard Stern fan!

In your dream you're somewhat surprised to find yourself in an intimate situation with a a famous personality to whom you didn't even realize you were attracted.  This represents your latent attraction to women, and the fact that you've hidden this attraction, even from yourself. You've lived as a heterosexual woman, but your subconscious knows better. The intimacy, itself, is also telling. Howard's ability to pleasure you simultaneously with his mouth and his penis isn't about him, at all, but about you: in your dream you're having it both ways because, in your waking life, you want to have your cake and eat it, too. Because you're bisexual.

She's No Lady!

Bernard b. of Albuquerque, NM writes:

Dear Gay Agenda,
I am a 38 year old heterosexual male liberal Puerto Rican who has dreamt of Ann Coulter on numerous occasions. And the strange thing(s) is(are) that she is totally the Ann Coulter we know, but in my dreams she's incredibly warm and nurturing, and we have positively fabulous times together.

I've smoked enough cigars to know that any dream someone like me should have of an authoritarian, Amazonian rightwingotrix like Ms. Coulter should be absogoddamnlutely replete with S&M. But the thing is, though in these dreams (and there have been many), while we are clearly and comfortably partners, the emphasis is on a very sweet domesticity. 

What the fuck, Gay Agenda?

Yours,
- Bb

Bernard, your dream is quite simple. You've dreamt about having a relationship with the most repulsive person you can think of.  In real life, Ann Coulter is not only unattractive, but repugnant in every way.  In your recurrent dreams, you're surprised to find that the very person you would expect find least attractive is, in fact, not only someone you end up with, but someone whose company you enjoy, and enjoy a great deal....and even find "sweet." Your subconscious is telling you that, just because you've told yourself the same story for a lifetime - that you're a heterosexual man who is not attracted to other men - the fact is, you are, in fact, drawn to and desire that which you would never expect to: MAN MEAT. Because you're, in fact, gay.

Bag of Tricks

Robert S. of Garland, Texas writes:

Last night's dream: I arrived at a school for a a night class in some technical course. I knew other students who were there. Apparently it was the last class, and I had to gather up lots of knick-knacks I had left at my work table over the course, and placed them in my knapsack along with my laptop. I left the room, but ended up returning to the classroom where the teacher was showing slides to those who remained; the slides were basically of the class over the run of the class course. I discovered my knapsack had been stolen while I watched the slides. Upset and knowing I'd probably never find the knapsack, I tried to leave the school building, which seemed impossible to get out of.

The knapsack represents a vagina, and the things inside of it represent your history and items from past: the odds and ends from a class that's finished and your laptop, which is your memory.

The technical course you've been taking at night is the journey of sexual discovery you've undertaken almost in secret (hence this being night school..or under cover of the night.) In the dream, you get to a place of learning (learning about yourself) and find that the items from your past and your history have disappeared. They are no longer relevant, because this is the "last class" and you've learned all you need to know about yourself- That you're gay.

The pieces of your past, which are tied up in your misguided attempts at sexual relationships with women (the knapsack/vagina) are gone forever.  Although you don't need to pursue women or wear the face of someone who does, since you're actually gay, you clearly haven't fully accepted this, which is why you're upset in the dream about knowing you can never have the knapsack/vagina back.

However, it's also a hopeful dream, because you find it impossible to leave the school building. This is your subconscious showing you that, no matter what you may be feeling, your inner core is strong will never let you lose your True Wisdom - that you're a gay man. 

Super Friends

Jim C. of Edmonton,  a gay man from Canada writes:

Ok, epic dream. Literally. Looking back, it was a combination of Lost, Once Upon a Time, X-Men, Game of Thrones, and Cloud Atlas. I am more a watcher than a participant. A group of young friends are living in rundown houses in the woods. Something than I don't remember happens, and one by one that start to get special powers. Some of them are are of the changes, some are not. There is a sense that some of them are becoming evil. The world changes around them, into a mythical land. There are remnants of ancient structures around them. I realize that if they touch these structures, changes will happen. Some may die, some may become good in the future, some will become bad, some will receive powers that will unveil themselves in the future. A friend that I know IRL stumbles off the path and his back hits the wall of a structure. Another friend that I know helps him to his feet, touching him while the first friend is still touching the wall. I know that they will both receive powers, but the helpful friend's won't be as strong since he didn't touch the structure directly. We are back in one of the houses. One person has received the power to influence objects, but doesn't realize it yet. He comes into the room with the others, saying that he's won the lottery. The house has changed to an opulent old house. No one is aware that the house has changed. As far as they are aware, they have always lived together in the house. They are all rich now. I hear a news report on the radio about the lottery win, because the winning number contained letters as well as numbers, like a code. No else seems to have heard the radio. Things start to change in the house, a little at a time. There is a special delivery. It is boxes and boxes of different volumes of The Game of Thrones, each one telling different aspects of the stories from different characters perspectives. The boxes are dumped open. Each book is a specific different volume, and friends grab individual book. I grab one, and realize that it tells the story as I am seeing it in my dream. The friends have some 'normal' people in for a dinner party. I realize that this is a bad thing, that these people are in danger for their lives. The friends are still not aware that they have been altered, and that their actions are now reflecting their evil intent. The normal people are mingling at the party. Objects in the room from the mythical land appear. Tables, chairs, bottles, etc. outside on the patio, there are now scattered chairs and tables, as well as a throne in the corner. I know that if anyone sits in the chair, they will be killed. My real life friend is joking around the throne and starts to sit in it. Instead of dying, he is propelled from the chair. Inside the house, I sit on a couch with two of the friends. An Irish Setter-like dog sits next to me on the couch. This dog has a connection to the ancient world, and can speak, but no one else realizes this yet. It speaks, but it appears that only I can understand it. It says nothing of any real importance. Then, while everyone is out of the room, some of the normal people think they'll help out my tidying things up. One of them takes the magical bottles and cleans the dirt off of them so they sparkle like new. I know that this is bad, because this is the dirt of ancient world and is the only connection to the ancient land that they have. The friends are enraged. I also see that a silver spoon has been thrown away accidentally. One of the friends is frantically looking for it. I realize, but she does not, that the spoon is required for her powers to reach their full effect. When she tears through the garbage can, I see the spoon fall out behind some furniture, but no one else sees it. Suddenly, the surroundings have changed to a very modern luxury condo. Again, no one else is aware of the change. As far as they are concerned, they have always lived here. Slowing, a few at a time, flying buildings start to go past the windows in the the condo. More and more of them appear, displaying advertising on their exterior walls until the view is filled with these advertising-covered flying buildings. A different real life friend turns to me and says that there's too much advertising these days. Suddenly, we are outside on the street, which is a series of stairs, ramps and bridges. Up from one of the stairs comes careening an orange car. It is driven by my friend who was thrown from the throne. He has gone mad. He drives through the crowd. I see that he has hit a pedestrian, and his right leg had been severed cleanly above the knee. He holds up his stump at an angle, in pain. I see the blood spurt out across the street, where it hits the top of some bridge supports. When it touches them, the supports start to melt and the bridge collapses, like it was made of rubber. There is a huge pile of debris. One of the female 'super friends' leans on the debris, and the roadway is magically flattened. The supporting archway on one side remains standing. Her boyfriend tells her that she should go tell the mayor. She smiles knowingly at him, turns, and starts walking away along the beam of the archway. It flattens out as she walks along it. Her boyfriend thinks that the beam must be made of some kind of soft material now, and tries to pull out a rivet. He is unable to, of course. I watch her walk away on the beam, an see it flattening ahead of her in a spray of sparks and fire. The theme from Lawrence of Arabia is heard. Interpret away, Lana. And yes, Lena Headey was one of the super friends. A baddie.

First of all, I love that Lena Headey made an appearance in your dream. She is welcome to inhabit my dreams on any night of the week.

This dream is about a number of ideas; the sheer power of sexuality and sexual identity is chief among them. Just as some of your friends have no idea that they have or will gain super powers, or that small, seemingly insignificant things (such as a spoon) are connected to having power, your subconscious mind is telling you that a person's very identity is not just something he lives with, but a form of power.  Your friend who sits on the throne (he's a real QUEEN, that guy) isn't killed, as you expect, but thrust up and forward with a burst of energy by the throne, itself. This friend eventually goes "mad." In casual English, we use the word "mad" when what we mean in "angry." This friend and his "madness' actually represent your anger at the fact that an ever-changing world still feels threatened by your homosexuality, which is actually your source of power. 

The magical bottles that make people sparkle like new actually wash away all remnants of where they came from and where they've been. This is seen as a negative thing in the dream. It represents your resentment at the efforts some homosexuals make to fit in in a predominantly heterosexual world.  In your mind, Jim, too much effort has been made to sanitize homosexuality and make it more palatable to the masses, instead of the masses making the move to accept that there's great value in diversity in how people identify, sexually. It may have looked like dirt and soot that was washed off of your friends, but it was actually the stuff of who they really are: and they don't want to be magically clean and homogenous, because they embrace their histories and the things that make them different from others. 

Your friend complaining about how there's so much advertising is a reference to how homosexuality has become something that is used as a gimmick - on tv shows, in the press, in music videos and pop songs, etc. It's a watering down and cheapening of something you hold sacred; your sexual identity...the way advertisements water down and cheapen the idea of family love to sell greeting cards or lemonade. 

The stairs and ramps represent all the obstacles that you, as a homosexual, see before you every day, in a world where you're the "other." It's one of your friends, though, who manages to overcome these obstacles and 'flatten them out" - because she has acquired super powers. Again, her super power is really not a super power, at all, but the fact that she's embraced her true self. It's only when she walks away from her boyfriend (with a knowing smile) and towards something else. Because she's a lesbian. The boyfriend's pathetic efforts to pull out a rivet from the road, because he assumes it's pliable points to the fact that, no matter how hard he tries, he can't change something that is set in stone and NOT PLIABLE:  the woman he's in love with is actually a lesbian. 

This dream is very complicated and covers a lot of ground, mostly about your feeling about how the world views you and homosexuals, in general. Also, you should tell your real life friend that she's a lesbian. She and her boyfriend really have a right to know. 

Oh, and Lena Headey is in your dream because - as much as I love her - she's a perfect example of Hollywood trying to make homosexuality more palatable to a heterosexual audience by casting a very beautiful, femme, heterosexual actress in big screen girl-on-girl movies.  That's why she's a baddie in the dream.

I think the Lawrence of Arabia soundtrack is just incidental, and every gay man knows that Peter O'Toole was beautiful in that role.

More Than Meets The Eye

Elizabeth M., of Chicago Illinois writes:

Okay, last night I dreamed my boyfriend was an Autobot and I was cool with it, because humanity needed a robot-human hybrid. 

In your dream, your partner - a male - is a character from Transformers. Transformers, of course, change from one thing to another: a robot, turns into a car. This signifies your subconcious knowledge of your real-life boyfriend's desire to be something completely different from what he is, now. In your dream, you're "cool with it" because you see your odd coupling as achieving something the world needs.

This dream is revealing about both you and your boyfriend. He's clearly been giving out subliminal messages to you during your waking hours - and his message becomes loud and clear to you only in your dream state. That message is simple: he's a woman trapped in a man's body, and he's ready to change.  Your boyfriend is transgender.

You're not only ready to accept it but you see the whole business of your boyfriend switching genders as the best thing that could happen for everyone. Because you're a lesbian.

DUH

Mae P. of Atlantic City, NJ writes:

I was sleeping with my old creepy boss (a male) and while grossed out, I was still doing it. Interpretation?

Does this dream even need interpretation? It's a dream about how you continue to have sex with men, even though the entire process is repugnant to you. Because you'd rather have sex with women. Because you're really a lesbian.

Kids and Cocktails

Amber S.,  photographer from  NYC writes:

First dream: I dreamt I was taking a bunch of 18 year old kids I knew when they were like babies on a picnic and we debated whether they were old enough to have cocktails. We did, in the end, decide to have small gin cocktails. The picnic was in the abandoned house of an ex of mine.

Results:

The fact that you've dreamt about people in their infantile state signifies your desire to get back in touch with yourself in your purest form: not the person you've grown to become, but the person your were BORN to be. 

The debate about cocktails is also telling - it's you arguing with your inner child about whether or not you are ready to move forward and take that inner child into adulthood - a move from breast milk to hard liquor, if you will. 

You don't want to leave your baby self - your pure self - behind, because you know that's the real Amber and you're weighing up how to reconcile that with being an adult from whom the world has certain expectations. 

The entire event takes place in the home of an ex-lover so, again - this refers to you compartmentalizing your life (the baby Amber lives in this space, adult Amber lives in this space, this is the space I reserve for things having to do with romantic relationships...) and to your desire to stop doing this and live your life as more of a whole person, with all these parts of you integrated into daily living. Obviously, that it's the house of an ex lover also refers to The House Where Desire Lives. You're dreaming about being in your purest and most real state, in a house associated with sexuality and desire, and you're getting ready to drink gin. 

Did you know gin is made from the juniper berry, which is the female part of the juniper tree? 

This is a dream about your desire to finally face the fact that you're a lesbian. 

Second Dream:  I dreamed I tried to sell as scrap metal an item to gather up some cash and was bringing something that my mom (who made jewelry) made to these guys who had a scrapping stand that was really like the hotdog cart. This item that was really too big to be jewelry and it was like the size of a bookend and I knew it was silver and some other metal. They were trying to scam me and tell me that it wasn't silver and they're making up these strange names of metals which I kept writing down with a Chinese marker on a piece of butcher paper. I tried to take my thing back because they only wanted to give me nine dollars. 

That you're dealing with a material object passed down from your mother tells me that your dream is clearly about something you believe has great value...not monetary value, but something really close to your heart that you would never really want to get rid of. Also something connected to female energy, and who is the first female any girl feels an affinity for? Her mother. 

This important object - it's big, too big to be jewelry...in other words, it's not just ornamental. It has significance beyond what people see of it. TOO BIG TO IGNORE. It represents your sexuality. 

This dream and its components are you telling yourself that the fact you're clearly a lesbian can't just be shoved into your pocket and forgotten - it's big and you can't help seeing it and feeling it. Like a pair of bookends, it defines a space - a space inside of your soul! 

It's also precious - if its coming to you in the form of a gift from your mother isn't enough to show that, you've even given it the distinction of being made of precious metals, including silver, which is an important component in photography - something that I know is close to your heart. 

In your dream, you consider selling the object that represents your sexual identity, but are offered very little for it, and you know that you've allowed yourself to be shortchanged - by men in a HOT DOG CART, no less -  so you're trying to "take your thing back." Men have shortchanged you, and your true sexual leanings are obviously towards other women. You're a lesbian.