Exhibit Seventeen: Acquired by the Dream Gallery 24 September 1999
'Steps'
Feeling The Picture
Your feeling reactions to a dream are keys to its interpretation. These are my feelings. If this were a scene in your dream or life, how would you feel about being there?
These steps give me a feeling of comfort and solidity, permeated by transcendence
of time and place. I am intrigued by the fact that I am first drawn to
the rises of the steps which seem striated as if formed from layers of
fossilised wood. Above these seemingly prehistoric slabs rest the anciently-trod,
smoothed surfaces of steps which echo centuries of whispering conversations.
I can travel these steps: skip, hop, jump … and move on. I feel permanence
and impermanence and I am in awe.
The Symbols
Symbols in your dreams often relate to your personal memories and associations, so always consider those first. Then let your mind play with other, more general possibilities. They will not all apply! Just open your mind and notice where the symbol seems to fit and make sense of the rest of your dream.
Steps can symbolise the steps we take in life, or they can represent
taking a ‘step up’ in the world or be a visual clichÈ on ‘stepping
down’ from a position or job for example. The number of steps can
be significant. If you see steps in a dream and you specifically notice
the number of steps, then welcome this number as part of the interpretation.
Five steps may suggest, literally, ‘five steps to take’, or
they may represent a slice of time such as ‘five months ahead’
or ‘five years ago’, or ‘when you were five’ or ‘when
you’re fifty’. Remember that personal symbolism is important
in interpreting your dreams, visions and significant waking moments. If
you meditate upon the chakras, for example, five steps might symbolise
the fifth chakra.
Staircases or steps leading up or down can symbolise your emotional rises
and falls. Steps leading down are a common symbol for people descending
into a period of depression, while steps leading up can herald the return.
Alternatively going down steps can be symbolic of going down deeper into
the unconscious, while ascending steps can reflect ascending to higher
levels of understanding or being.
The Questions
Here are some questions the dreamer of such a dream picture might ask to work towards a complete understanding of the dream.
Try these yourself: just give your 'gut reaction' answers to the questions - your answers will surprise you in the insights they deliver. The key thing to remember is, "Don't THINK about your answers - give quick gut reaction replies". Your unconscious will deliver.
If this process can work powerfully for this image, consider how infinitely more powerful the insights are when the image comes from one of your own dreams - direct from your unconscious!
- What feeling do these steps give you?
- Where have you come from?
- Who has been here before you?
- Who will come here after you?
- How many ways can you travel over these steps?
- Which way would you choose to go?
- If, instead of going over the steps and going straight ahead, you
go up the steps and turn left, where would this take you? (If you have
already been there, answer in retrospect.)
- Is there something to learn there?
- About which area of your life?
- Thinking about that area of your life now, do any ‘steps to take’
spring to mind?
- What are they?
- If your voice was added to the whispering voices of all those who
have trodden these steps before you, and if your voice was to linger
for all time, which words would be heard?
- Are you happy with these words, or would you like to change them?
- As you walk away from these steps, what is the one echo you can hear,
from centuries past, whispering through the air?
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