OVERVIEW INTERPRETATION
Hi T,
There is a belief among many dream experts that it is impossible to switch lights on or off in dreams but I have read of many dream experiences to the contrary and I have also switched dream lights on and off myself. Your sister and best friend also successfully managed to switch your dream lights off. Had you heard of this myth? If so, it may have affected your dream experience.
What personality traits or approaches to life do your sister and your best friend have in common? If they have little in common, in what way are they opposite to each other? People in dreams are there to represent our own beliefs, often to one extreme or the other. We’ll return to this.
Your dream starts in the place you called home until 1974. When a dream takes you back to a previous home, it is usually referring you back to the origin of certain beliefs or experiences that are currently blocking your progress. Since you take your sister and best friend with you, they probably represent that belief or attitude, in either its positive or negative aspect. For example, if you decided that these two have laziness in common then they may represent a belief in not trying hard. If you decided one is extremely loyal and one is disloyal then they may represent your beliefs and experiences around issues of loyalty stemming from that time.
So, there you are, back in the past, when you hear a sound like thunder. You are alerted to the sign you need to see to understand how your past is influencing your present. You even announce it as a sign in your dream: “This is the sign of the Antiquity period.”
In dreams we look back on our lives and see the early years as so distant that they may as well be history, or prehistoric in some instances. In your dream the antiquity you are viewing is most likely your own far away childhood. So why did your dreaming mind choose the Roman period as a symbol of antiquity? Are you or were you ever particularly fond of this period? What does this period mean to you? I was born in England and, in the sixties and seventies I remember so many house building and road building projects came to a halt because Roman ruins were found on excavation. Are you English? Did you have similar experiences? Your personal associations to a symbol are important.
I see the Romans as clever architects. They built palaces with under-floor heating, for example. They were ideas people. The reason I mention this is some of the other symbolism in your dream:
You saw your Roman soldiers in cloud form. You mentioned the mist of the sky and later in the dream one of the Roman soldiers induced vapour to appear from your girlfriend’s clavicle. In dreams clouds, mists, skies and vapours all tend to symbolise ideas in their pre-manifestation state. The air tends to represent the mind, so the shapes we see in the sky (the clouds and mists) are like our ideas just as they are beginning to form, before we have taken action to materialise them.
Think of looking up at clouds, trying to see pictures in their shapes. Did you do that as a child? It would have encouraged and built your imagination, honed your ability to be creative with ideas and thought forms. But ideas remain vaporous unless you take action on them. You might have an idea for a book, but it only becomes a book when you take action on your idea and write it.
Your dream features lights that you cannot turn off. Dreams often play on words and clichés we use in waking life. We talk about the light coming on when we have an idea. We see the light when something occurs to us. Your dream featured a light bulb, which must be pretty close to a universal symbol for an idea. You even described yourself as “really smart” when you got the idea of unscrewing the bulb!
You were the chosen one. What does this mean? The chosen one is usually the messenger, the bringer of light (as in your dream), the person who helps transform the message into practical application. Do you smell a call to action here? Time to materialise an idea?
What ideas and visions did you have, pre-1974, that you have not acted upon yet?
Your Roman soldiers were people of action. They had purpose. They carried spears to act on their goals, to achieve their missions. Their chariots were horse-driven. The horses were Roman ‘drive’ just as a car in a modern dream may represent your drive and motivation because its purpose is to get you to your destination.
Animals in dreams often symbolise your own energies. What energy do you see in these Roman horses – or in other horses? Many people see horses as their passion. Are your dream horses your passionate ideas, formed but not yet materialised?
At the end of your dream one of the Roman soldiers demonstrated that your girlfriend was full of vapour, like hot air perhaps, ideas without substance. You stand there cringing because you know you are the chosen one, you’re praying that no-one will see that it is you who needs to transform vapour into substance.
The middle portion of your dream is about hiding. You are all trying to run away and hide from the call to action. But you can never hide, as your dream is showing you. You may have been hiding since before 1974, but the call is still chasing you.
What happened around 1974, or after 1974, to cause you to hesitate about putting your ideas into action?
Where do your sister and girlfriend stand in the ideas-into-action field? Do they resist? In your dream they turn off their lights and stay in the dark. Do they represent your beliefs in keeping your ideas in the dark? Earlier in this interpretation I suggested you work out the issues these two women represented. Can you see how these issues, in your own life, may be holding you back from materialising your ideas?
The clavicle. The Roman armour, for those lucky enough to wear it, featured a breastplate that was suspended from leather straps across the clavicle. My feeling is that the soldier calling for action was indicating that you should be brave and acting for what you want to achieve but there is nothing but vapour.
Has the light bulb gone on yet?
DREAM ALCHEMY PRACTICE
Dialogue:
Your dialogue is between you and the female Roman soldier. Start with you saying, “I didn’t know women fought in the Roman army!” and see what the soldier automatically answers. Keep it going for 20 minutes.
How to do this:
Give yourself no longer than 20 minutes. When you do this exercise do NOT think! Don’t plan ahead. Just let whatever happens happen. Let the two entities speak to each other on paper using whatever words come up. It’s a bit like writing a film script or play – but without the brain being involved.
How does this work?
By not thinking, by keeping the words flowing, you are letting your right brain and unconscious mind do most of the work. They created the original dream so they know what these symbols mean for you. They will reveal. You will be surprised.
More details on Dialogue as a Dream Alchemy Practice in: “Dream Alchemy”, by Jane Teresa Anderson, pages 321-4 and 333.
Jane Teresa Anderson
You can consult with Jane Teresa or her Dream Team and receive your interpretation by email within five working days.
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