You described the tree house as abandoned and felt it had been built by kids or teenagers. Straight away this suggests that this dream is about something from your own childhood or teenage years that had been abandoned – until the recent discovery, reflected in your dream.
A tree house is a place to play make-believe or perhaps retreat from the adult world. Did you have special place, either physically or emotionally, when you were that age? Did you create that space because you felt abandoned or have you since abandoned or lost touch with that kind of space in your life?
The telephone pole may symbolise communication (phone wires) or a kind of artificial tree. As a child or teenager did you create a special space for yourself because of communication difficulties or, quite the opposite, in order to focus on communication? For example, did you create space to write, to compose music or to try to contact aliens?
A tree house at the top of a telephone pole is much higher than a conventional tree house and much harder to access, so there is a real sense of isolation here. Did you feel isolated as a child or did you seek isolation?
In this dream you, as an adult, go back to rescue something of yourself that you have abandoned. Of course the cat had gone ahead of you, but then she needed rescuing too.
Cats are very independent adventurers and many people regard them as symbols of intuition because they have a knack of following their noses and are associated in folklore with witches. But what do cats mean to you? What was the energy of this white cat? Animals in dreams reflect our own energies and instincts. In what sense do you carry the energy of a white cat?
I should reframe that question, as the white cat has been stuck in the abandoned tree house and you have only just rediscovered her in this dream. What is this energy or instinct that you have lost touch with (abandoned) and that you are ready to rescue?
Why is she white? White may symbolise purity or spirituality. You titled your dream ‘Snow white kittens in tree’. Snow white is a term of purity but it also has fairytale connotations. Interesting! Snow White kept house for dwarfs – a tiny house – as small as a tree house perhaps! Have a think about the story of Snow White and see if anything resonates from your childhood. Snow White was abandoned to the woods when the evil queen wanted her killed. She found sanctuary in the tiny dwarf house.
Can you relate to abandonment as a child or teenager, or to finding a communication sanctuary that you have since abandoned?
It seems you have an instinct (the cat) to hide away and be creative (give birth to ideas, kittens) but that you have a fear of bringing these new ideas out of the safe hiding place and into the world. Those creative ideas may be around communication or you may be feeling reticent to communicate them.
There is also a link with the tree house being a child’s place and the kittens being children. Play. A play house and kittens playing. Is it a sense of play that you have abandoned or that you are fearful of bringing into your world today?
The last line in your dream mentions how “alive and thriving” the kittens are in the “abandoned” tree house. These are opposites. It’s possible that you are looking for a balance between a thriving liveliness (or sense of play) and a sense of necessary retreat, peace or creativity.
The key is the fear of the mother cat. What is your fear in bringing lively, thriving, perhaps playful, communicative ideas out of hiding? In the dream you are ready to do this. Go for it!
Writing Exercise
Now, set a timer for 15 minutes and start writing or typing as fast as you can – with no room for thought – a story starting titled “Snow White and the Seven Kittens”. Just let the words flow – a kind of stream of consciousness. Stop when the timer sounds. Read over your story at leisure. You will be surprised how much you learn from this.
How does this work?
By working with dream elements and symbols in writing form you are communicating with your unconscious mind in its own language to create change, to explore your feelings and to resolve and heal past issues.
More details on various writing exercises as Dream Alchemy Practices in: “Dream Alchemy” by Jane Teresa Anderson, pages 337-338.
Jane Teresa Anderson
