OVERVIEW INTERPRETATION
Hi Gracie,
There’s a big clue in the title of your dream, as you have called it Big win-fall when you probably meant Big windfall. Did you know the word was windfall and simply misspell it, or does it surprise you to know that it’s windfall?
As children we frequently mishear words but the difference in their pronunciation is so small that nobody notices, even into adulthood. I knew of one child who heard ‘an orange’ as ‘a norange’. She happily discussed noranges for decades before anyone noticed. If you heard windfall as win-fall, then your unconscious mind will have an association between winning and falling. The unconscious mind responds to the sound and shape of words, extending their meaning beyond your conscious understanding of the word. This is why dreams express a lot of word play. The dreaming mind has a far more lateral grasp of words.
On the other hand you may have always known the word windfall and titled your dream by a Freudian slip of your typing fingers. In this case too, it is the unconscious mind that authors the Freudian slip and signals its word associations in doing so. When you write out or tell a dream, leave the spelling mistakes or Freudian slips in and consider them when you interpret.
So, a win-fall. You may have a belief, based on past experience or on parental tutoring, that you can’t win without experiencing a fall; something’s got to give. This comes across in your dream when you say that you felt a little bad for the other people in the competition. The feeling of the win was slightly marred by a down feeling: a win fall.
Looking more closely, you felt bad because you hadn’t thought about winning. This suggests you felt you didn’t deserve the win. Did you feel the others were more worthy of winning?
But the overall feeling was that the burden had been lifted, so let’s focus on that next. When a large number with lots of zeroes on the end comes up in a dream, knock off the zeroes and see what you’re left with. Dreams often add zeroes for dramatic impact. You’re left with 25. Are you over the age of 25 or under? If over, what happened in terms of a win or fall when you were 25? If under, what do you expect your situation to be when you are 25 (e.g. end of university?) The 25 may even refer to 2.5, when you were two and a half. Was there a win fall then? Pride comes before a fall? Or were you made to share a winning, a prize, when you wanted to keep it?
Money in a dream is often about values, particularly self value or self esteem. In your dream you proposed getting out of debt. Even though you do have financial debts in waking life, consider whether you feel you hold emotional debts. You hold an emotional debt when you feel indebted to someone in a relationship. The other person may have done something wonderful for you, leaving you feeling a genuine wish to return the blessing, but, more commonly, we feel an emotional debt when another person presses the feeling upon us. An example of an emotional debt is feeling obliged to fulfil another person’s expectation that you will spend time with them instead of going on a much-needed holiday because they make you feel you owe it to them.
In your dream you hadn’t even thought about winning until your name had been read out and then you felt bad. Have you been made to feel guilty for being lucky (when, in fact, you’ve put in hard work, as in the dream where you must have composed a winning entry) and have you felt an emotional debt to someone who puts in less work to ‘make up’ for that person’s perception of your luck? If so, is this related to age 25? This may be the burden you’re ready to lift and let go.
DREAM ALCHEMY PRACTICE
Giving back the belief:
By now you have probably worked out a belief relating winning and falling or relating to a feeling of emotional debt.
First write down that belief in one sentence, “I believe that …” Then write down the name of the person who you learned that belief from. Then write down a new belief to replace the old one. Now you’re ready to give back the original belief. Use the example below as a guide on how to do this.
How to do this:
Here’s an example. You can adapt it to suit the belief you are ready to give back:
(From DREAM ALCHEMY, page 67.)
“A little boy was taught that ‘boys don’t cry’ and ‘fathers don’t hug their sons’. Of course this little one desperately needed to cry or be hugged along the way, but he grew up to hold back his tears and keep an emotional distance from those he loved. On the surface all was cool, but deep inside that little boy lived on, still crying rejected, unloved tears. He took on the beliefs of his father and suffered as a result.
To perform this Giving Back the Belief dream alchemy practice this man imagines going back to meet himself as a little child and hugs this child. He tells him that he can now give his father back this belief that boys don’t cry and fathers don’t hug because it belongs to the father, not to the child. The grown man helps the child to do this, in the visualisation, and sees the father agree to take back the belief. In its place the grown man must give the child a new belief to replace the old. He chooses to give the belief, ‘It’s good for boys and men to cry when they need to and to hug and express their feelings’.”
Make sure that when you give back a belief you replace it with a better belief, otherwise it is likely to be filled by another unsuitable belief.
How does this work?
The beliefs you carry are not set in concrete. You borrowed them from other people so you can give them back. Since dreams usually show the person you borrowed the belief from, that person is the perfect symbol to use to communicate with your unconscious mind. Like any symbol, the person lives on in your mind not as the actual person, but as part of your unconscious language. By communicating with the person-symbol through dream alchemy you give back your belief – you reprogram your unconscious mind.
More details on Giving Back the Belief as a Dream Alchemy Practice in: “Dream Alchemy”, by Jane Teresa Anderson, pages 336-7.
Jane Teresa Anderson
You can consult with Jane Teresa or her Dream Team and receive your interpretation by email within five working days.
|
