Exhibit Thirty Two: Acquired by the Dream Gallery 30 November 2000
'Gorge-ous'
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 connection and flow because of the way the blue of the sky seamlessly pours down the rock face and flows ever beyond the frame of the image. This reminds and reassures me that what can seem to be untouchable, too high, pie-in-the-sky one day can soak into my grounded being the very next, as smoothly and as surely as water flows.
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.
While water tends to symbolise emotions, a river or waterfall can represent life's flow, or the flow of energy in our life.
This image has a quality of separation or of two sides. The waterfall cuts through the rock so that, if you were in this landscape, you would be on one side or on the other side. You would have to cross the water to change sides. This is underlined by the appearance of the two trees at the top of the gorge. One tree stands on each side. If this was a dream location, the symbolism could revolve around two sides to an issue, either two conflicting sides or two contributing sides.
As trees can represent the self or other people, the two trees may symbolise two aspects of the dreamer or two people. They could represent two parents, for example, or twin aspects of the dreamer.
Rock may symbolise solidity or hardness. Remember, though, that water slowly but surely cuts through, smoothes and reshapes rock, especially in an ancient landscape such as a gorge. At the same time the rock face gives shape to the water flowing over it. This is a two-way process with vastly differing time scales and huge transformation as an ongoing result. Any of these themes may be the meaning behind such a dream metaphor.
The sky often represents our conscious thought ('air'), or what is in sight for us on the horizon, but it can also symbolise high ideals or seemingly out of reach goals.
The image contrasts the height of the sky with the depth of the gorge, so, in a dream, the ups and downs of life or the highs and lows of mood swings may be reflected. Finally the fact that the landscape is a gorge may be, if this were a dream, a dream pun on 'gorge', to overeat or overindulge. The highs and lows of a chocolate binge perhaps … ;)
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!
- Which part of this landscape feels most positive?
- Which part of this landscape feels least positive?
- If you could put your hand in the water, how would it feel?
- If you could lay your hand on the rock face, how would it feel?
- Which season is this?
- What is your gut reaction feel for the age of the two trees?
- Where are you in this picture?
- How do you feel about being there?
- Where, in this picture, would you rather be?
- How would you feel in the place you answered for Q9?
- How would you feel if you were on the other side of the water in this picture?
- What feeling do the two trees give you?
- Look back at your feelings from Q8 and Q10. Is there a situation in your life now where these two feelings are prominent?
- What is the situation, and how does your answer to Q11 come into this?
- Look back to your answer to Q6. What is the significance of this number of years in your life? What has been in your life for that length of time, or what is of that significant duration in your life, or what was happening for you at that age, for example?
- Look back at your answer to Q12. How does this feeling tie in with your answer to Q15?
- If you have identified a situation, look back at your answers to Q1 and Q2 and consider these to be your unconscious view of the most positive and least positive aspects of your situation.
- Imagine yourself in this landscape. This is an echoing gorge. Listen and you will hear the voice of the waterfall. Close your eyes and really listen. What message of inspiration does it deliver for you?
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