“Hello, Benny.  How have you been since the last time I talked to you?”

“I am doing much better now, Dr. Larry.  I do have another dream that I would like to discuss with you though.”

“Go ahead. I'm listening.”

“Well, I had another dream about honey.  But this time I was in the grocery store trying to decide what honey I should buy.  Normally I just buy the standard 48-ounce honey pot, which lasts me all week. However, this time I must have been really hungry.  I went straight past the 48-ounce honey pot section to a honey pot that was labeled as the "XXXL Honey Pot."  This honey pot was not just big, it was HUGE.  The pot held a massive 20 gallons of honey.  The pot was so big that it took four of the grocery store employees to carry it to my car.  Once I got the honey home, I began to pig out.  I was basically shoveling honey into my mouth. I ate and ate until I began to feel full, and then I ate some more.  Finally I got to the point where I couldn't anymore.  When I checked to see how much honey was left, I noticed that the honey was still almost filled to the top!  I couldn't believe it! It seemed like the honey would last me a life-time.  As the week went on I continued to gorge myself with honey to the point where I constantly had a stomachache.  But still the pot was almost as full as the day I had bought it.  As I continued to eat, I noticed that the honey began to have an awful odor to it.  I guess I didn't finish the honey quick enough, and it was already spoiling.  All of a sudden, a large swarm of flies entered my den and went straight into the honey pot.  Once they came in contact with the honey, they were stuck.   The pot of honey continued to attract more and more flies, but none of them were able to escape.”

“My dream then suddenly cut to another scene.  I was standing at the edge of a pond with another pot of honey.  I am not really sure what I was doing, but it looked like there was something in the pond that I wanted.   Without evening setting my pot of honey down on the ground, I dove into the pond.  As I began to look furiously around in the pond, I dropped the honey pot I was originally holding.  Whatever it was I was looking for, I couldn’t find it.   I finally gave up and walked out of the pond empty-handed.  I not only lost the object in which I dove after but also the honey that I had to begin with.”

“Is that it?”

“Yeah, that was the end of my dream.”

“Well, I guess you want me to go ahead and explain the meaning of the dream.”

“Actually, I think I figured out the meaning of my dream this time.”

“Really? That’s great! Go ahead explain it then.”

“I figured that the first part of my dream is trying to warn me about the dangers of greed.  Since I bought a honey pot that was obviously much larger than what I needed, I was unable to finish it before it spoiled.  Once the honey spoiled, it attracted a large number of flies that also fell into the error of greed.  The flies desired the honey so much that they took the risk of getting stuck in the honey.  Although the second part of my dream was not very clear, I am pretty sure it was also trying to teach me about greed.  I have a hunch that the thing that I was looking for in the pond was another honey pot.  When I was staring at the pond at the beginning, I believe I was looking at the reflection of myself with a honey pot.  Believing that the honey pot was real, I dove into the pond in order to get it.  However, instead I lost the honey pot I had originally, and was unable to find the honey pot that was actually only a reflection.  As a result, my greed caused me to lose everything.”

“Wow, Benny.  I am really impressed.  It looks like you were able to figure out your dream on your own.  It looks like you won’t need my help anymore.”

Author’s Note: The first part of Benny’s dream is based off the story, The Flies and the Pot of Honey.  Since this story is really short, I had to add some extra details.  In the original story, a group flies get stuck as they try to eat honey for a jar that was “upset” in a pantry.  I added the part about Benny buying the pot of honey and how the honey spoiled.  As a result, the story not only illustrates how the flies acted out of greed but also how Benny acted in greed.  In the second part of Benny’s dream I retold the story, The Dog and His Image.  In this story, a dog holding a piece of meat in his mouth sees his image in a river.  Mistaking his image for another dog holding a bigger piece of meat, the dog jumps into the river in order to get the other piece.  Although I did not add much more detail this story, I changed most of the detail in the story.  In Benny’s dream, Benny represented the dog, the pot of honey represented the meat, and I used a pond instead of a river.

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