Exhibit Thirty Three: Acquired by the Dream Gallery 31 January 2001. Photo by Michael Collins
'Path'
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 the yielding softness of the grass compared to the heat of the tarmac. I want to take off my shoes and feel the slight prickle of the sand salting the tufts of grass. I feel I will hear the birdsong more clearly and feel the brush of the summery wind on my skin when barefoot on the soft green, shed of hard tarmac restraint.
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.
Paths may symbolise our life path, or the path we are travelling in an area of life: our career path, relationship path, spiritual path, the path to enlightenment and so on. We may travel in someone else's path, or create or choose our own pathway.
Or is this path a road? Dreams love picturing puns and cliches. If this were a freeze-frame image from a dream, could it be portraying feelings about coming to the end of a road in life? What determines the end of a road? Where does one road or path end and another begin? We can look at the paths or roads in our dreams to see where we're at in our lives and what our options are.
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!
- Where are you in this picture?
- If you are on the path, which way are you facing?
- Where have you come from and in which direction are you going?
- What feeling do you get when you stand on the tarmac?
- What feeling do you get when you stand on the grass?
- When you stand on the tarmac, what are you wearing on your feet?
- Would you prefer to have different footwear on the tarmac?
- When you stand on the grass, what are you wearing on your feet?
- Would you prefer to have different footwear on the grass?
- Where do you feel most comfortable in this picture and why?
- Where do you feel least comfortable and why?
- How do you feel if you stand with one foot on the tarmac and one on the grass?
- Does your answer to Q10 remind you of a situation in your life now? Which?
- Does your answer to Q11 remind you of a situation in your life now? Which?
- Does your answer to Q12 remind you of a situation in your life now? Which?
- If you could change this picture in one way only, what would it be?
- How would you feel about being in your new, changed picture?
- If you have identified a life situation in Q11 and Q12, can you work out, from your answer to Q16 what changes you can make to feel more comfortable?
- If you have identified a life situation in Q14, can you relate it to the part of the picture you want to change?
- Visualise yourself being in this picture and doing the practical work of the change. What feelings does this bring up for you?
- What have your answers revealed to you about your hopes and fears about your current life situation?
- What insight can you take away from this exercise?
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