Exhibit Twenty-Eight: Acquired by the Dream Gallery 31 July 2000
'Gestation'
 ~ Kindly donated by the artist, Euan Gray, who also composed and played the music for the 'Dream Sight Stories' audio tape. You can contact Euan by email.
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?
I feel a sense of the one within the whole, the individual protected within the womb while also being the core of the universe. This image reminds me of a Children's Annual I had when I was five, which had a picture on the cover of a girl holding the Children's Annual with the same picture on the cover. It fascinated me to imagine all those identical pictures within pictures, like an endless telescoping of Russian dolls. I wondered which was more 'real', the girl or the book she was holding. The childhood feeling was of being able to touch and yet not touch infinity in the same moment. I knew infinity through the feeling it gave me, but I couldn't know it by arriving at its beginning or its end. This Gallery image brings back the feeling of the world within the world within the world. The inner is the outer. The gestating baby protected and nurtured in the womb in this image is also the totality of the gestating, protected and nurtured planet Earth which is also the totality of the universe. Inner and outer worlds are one.
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.
You may encounter an image as a painting in a dream, perhaps hanging on a wall, as a picture in a book, or presented to you as a dream gift. Alternatively you may come across a surrealistic view such as this on reaching a dream mountaintop, or while dream-flying amongst the stars. In each case the image presents a visual concept, a summing up of a feeling or an wholistic overview of a situation achieved through the benefit of distance. Think in terms of standing back (or flying high) and looking back on an aspect of your life to see it captured as an expression of art.
The symbols within this particular image include those of gestation, birth and death (autumn leaves), energies (earth, air, fire and water), balance and harmony (the Yin-Yang shape), intuition and the birth of the feminine (the new moon), the unconscious (the dark night sky) and much more.
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 is the main feeling (one word) which this image gives you?
- Which part of the image stands out most for you?
- Is the gestating baby male or female?
- What is the baby's name?
- When the baby is born, he/she will have a messenger role to play in the world. Listen carefully: hear the baby whisper to you: what is the message he/she must deliver?
- What is the secret the baby is holding before birth?
- Consider your answer to Q1: how will the baby handle this emotion when he/she is old and wise?
- Consider your answer to Q2: hear the whisper of the baby, telling you what this represents in your life now. What does he/she say?
- Consider your answer to Q2: how will this part of the image change when the baby is born?
- Where are you in relation to this whole image? (Are you within the picture, a specific part of the picture or looking at it from a distance, for example?)
- The parents of the baby are standing on the new moon at the top right of this picture. What are their hopes and wishes for the birth of their child?
- How are the parents feeling?
- Consider your answer to Q12: in which area of your life now is this feeling predominant?
- Consider your answer to Q11: in which area of your life now are these your hopes and wishes?
- What are you ready to birth in your life now?
- What can you do to prepare for this birth?
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