OVERVIEW INTERPRETATION
Hi Owen,
Your dream starts with a night scene. Night sometimes represents the unconscious mind, both because it is difficult to see in the dark and also because we associate the night with sleeping and dreaming. In your dream you move in and out of dark and brightly lit places. The brightly lit places may represent situations you’re already conscious of, or what you are beginning to see and understand.
At one point you hide the guns in an electricity switchboard, a device for lighting up a place or plunging it into darkness with the flick of a switch. The switchboard is a kind of control room, a powerful place, like the concept of a government perhaps. The switchboard governs power. In your dream your mission was to eliminate a threat to the government, a threat to the power.
It is most insightful to look at everything in a dream as a reflection of the dreamer: your beliefs, feelings, thoughts and experiences. What would the government represent then? Perhaps it symbolises how you govern (control) yourself and your life. It probably represents the rules you have set yourself, the codes of conduct you live by. Your dream suggests you feel that these are under threat. Do you feel that you’re losing control over the way you like your life to run? Oh, I’ve just noticed you’ve titled your dream, ‘Losing it’.
Your dream features a German man. When you think of Germans, what personality traits spring to mind? For example, German people are often caricatured as being highly organised and tidy. I wonder if the German man in your dream represents a sense of order and control. He is concerned about threats to the government so he could well represent your own beliefs in the rules you live by and a sense of control.
So, you set off in the dream to get rid of the threat. Do you see any symbols of feelings of being out of control? For example, the women dancing naked, the people in the hallway grabbing at you and the jazz music perhaps?
You are in control in your dream until the German gets into an argument and leaves. It’s at that point that people start grabbing you and you lose your wallet, find yourself on a train without walls, are exposed to men fondling you and get trapped on the platform. Have you recently been in an argument and felt undermined? The dream argument was with a waiter. Have you been left waiting for something – a reply, permission, a promotion – and are you feeling angry about this?
Your dream has probably come up at time when your old ways of organising your life and feeling in control are breaking down. This is a wonderful opportunity to find a new way of being, to free up the control a bit, to allow life to surprise you in a positive way.
This is shown by the rather terrifying pitch black hallway. Hallways in dreams often symbolise the birth of something new. Think of a hallway as being like a birth canal, taking you from one room or place to another. Your hallway is dark and you cannot see. Your wallet goes missing, along, presumably with all your id and valuables. Rebirth is a process of letting go of the old ways, the old identities. In your case, your rebirth is also about facing your fears of the out-of-control, symbolised by the grabbing, fondling people.
Despite all the out of control stuff, the young man assures you that everything is okay and that you have plenty of money. (Money, in dreams, often represents self-value.) The ticket master points out that you have a ticket, even though you didn’t think you did. You have everything you need to survive.
The station master gives you old papers and black and white photos, suggesting that reviewing your past will reward you with the ticket to journey forward.
There are five grinning men fondling you, ten dollars is mentioned and three guards. Are you aware of what happened for you at ages three, five and ten? Alternatively, what happened for you three, five and ten years ago? This is a time to look back to identify the roots of your personal sense of self-government, order and control and to ask yourself if it’s time for a change.
The baby may represent your resistance to birthing new ways.
DREAM ALCHEMY PRACTICE
Giving back the belief:
By now you have probably worked out a belief about keeping a sense of order that you acquired from your childhood years and that is affecting your current situation.
First write down that belief in one sentence, “I believe that …” Then write down the name of the person who you acquired 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.
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