The inhabitants of John Ballantyne’s dream are anonymous men and women, though one woman – a scantily clad “kissing bug” at the gambling house resembles Dr. Peterson, his love interest. The other people are somehow disguised – and it is this element of disguise or masking that differentiates these characters from those in Wonderland, the sanatorium, Aeneas’ underworld or Job’s burning bed. The card player, for example, is not recognized but his beard is highlighted in the perception of the dreamer. The beard, of course, denotes experience, authority and also concealment. The proprietor of the gambling parlor appears in a suit and bow-tie – but he has a strangely blank face – as if his whole head is covered in a nylon stocking. He appears the same way later in the dream when we see him emerge from behind the chimney holding the wheel. 

The only other characters in the dream are the dreamer himself, shown running down the slope, and the shadow of the great winged creature chasing him. Again, as with the other characters the winged beast is concealed, adding a sense of mystery and emphasizing its symbolic value. It is concealed, like the others, because its meaning is concealed. Unlike Job’s Dream, the symbols here are not immediately obvious to the dreamer – and no epiphany is possible like the one Job has. This surreal assemblage of symbols requires the skill of a reader of these hieroglyphs, the psychoanalyst.