INTERPRETATION
There’s a difference between the inside and the outside of the store in your dream. The outside features beautiful, bright colours and beautiful songs. (And yes, you did use the word beautiful twice – everything was beautiful!) On the inside you were not quite so enthralled by beauty, colour and song. Instead there were simple designs that you were attracted to even though you knew you could do better.
I’ve never been in a supermarket that was in any way brightly coloured or resounding with beautiful songs. Supermarkets, in my experience, are very bland places – bland colours, bland music, never selling art or craft.
It’s helpful, when interpreting a dream, to look for opposites, especially if these opposites present a conflict. Your dream opposites are ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. If you feel the same way that most people do about supermarkets, your dream probably also offers ‘bright, colourful and beautiful’ and the opposite, ‘dull, bland/simple and could-do-better’.
The conflict your dream presents is between all the colourful vibrancy on the outside and the compromised-could-do-better bland on the inside.
Does this ring any bells?
Where, in your life at the time of this dream, did everything ‘on the outside’ in your world look beautiful and vibrant, whereas ‘on the inside’ you were compromising, choosing something less beautiful than you ‘could have’ designed?
You were with your ex in the dream, inside the store, so this suggests that you either compromised towards blandness in the relationship, or, more importantly, (since everyone in a dream represents something about the dreamer), that you are still attracted to, and settle for, compromise.
You wanted to buy one of the African cups because “I love” African art. So even though you thought you could have designed something better, you were motivated by what “I love” regardless of quality. Where, in your relationship and in the day or two before your dream, did you overlook quality in the name of love?
What do you love? What’s your passion? What makes you feel beautiful, colourful and vibrant? What is it you want to do that gives the same energy-feeling as those 12 Africans? Where have you tried to follow that passion (in the name of love) only to find yourself compromising? How can you fine tune your passion so that you can find your own way of doing things – your own design – your own brand – your own expression, instead of feeling forced to choose between limited options?
It feels like a field – perhaps career or lifestyle – that you chose because you passionately wanted it, only to find yourself making compromises within the field instead of finding your own special, vibrant way.
There were “about 12” Africans. Numbers in dreams are usually quite accurate. What happened 12 years ago? Or 12 months or 12 weeks ago? Or when you were 12? (Dreams tend to get the numbers right and miss out the units!) Take some time to contemplate 12 and what it means in this context. (Or did you take a 12 month course or a 12-unit course?)
There’s no need to interpret African, I feel, as you have said that you love African art, so the Africans represent your passion, or what you love.
Do you tend to show the world a bright, vibrant, passionate face (the outside) while feeling bland, limited or compromised on the inside? Might it be a good move to ‘design’ a brighter inner world to match the brighter outer world you like to project? The only person who can make your inner world brighter is you, and the only way to do this is to change significant ‘inner’ beliefs.
You can design any world you want, and then your outer and inner worlds will be as one, the outer genuinely reflecting the inner instead of just being an outer mask.
You’ve titled your dream ‘African buskers’, so we know the Africans were outside the supermarket with the object of making money. They weren’t part of the supermarket; they weren’t promoting the supermarket. But busking doesn’t make a lot of money (or does it?), so perhaps there’s a compromise here too. Hey – they’d have to share any money they make 12 ways, so it wouldn’t amount to much! Do you feel that following your passion will bring you limited financial rewards?
Now, why cups? What do cups do? They are used to transfer fluids from outside our bodies into our bodies. Hmmm – food, or drink, for thought.
So, are you limiting your choices, compromising, over the ways in which you ‘drink’ in the world – the ways in which you nourish yourself? Not only are you limiting yourself to bland could-do-better choices, but you are also limiting yourself to one of the two cups.
beautiful light in this dream is your insight that you could have designed nicer cups. Are you going to leave it at that, just a thought, and continue to compromise, or are you going to design a ‘nicer’ way of nourishing yourself, a way that brings genuine colour and vibrancy into the core of your being?
DREAM ALCHEMY PRACTICE
You’re obviously artistic, so for this dream alchemy practice, design a cup! You can design it on paper or you can take it a step further and produce it. Your task is to make it a far better design than the supermarket version in your dream. In doing this you work with your unconscious mind to eliminate bland compromise, and transform the negatives in the dream – and in your life - into positives. Draw on African art, draw on the vibrancy of the African singers, and add in symbols, colours and energies that define your passions, the ones you’d like to design into your life.
Jane Teresa Anderson
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