Exhibit Forty-Two: Selected from Michael's Dream Sight Gallery, 1st October 2001. Photo by Michael Collins
'Time'
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 lightness and speed of the ant. As I look at this picture I can feel the tickling sensation of an ant running across my right hand. The watch brings up quite contrasting feelings. It suddenly occurs to me as I type this piece that I wear my watch on my left wrist and had the sensation of the ant running across my right hand. Left and right: opposites yet two parts of a whole (it takes two hands to do many things). The watch brings up feelings of long-stretches of time, not only because they are measured but also because this watch has been lost and buried for … how long? The light, quick scuttle of a tiny ant feels contrasted against the heavy slow measuring of lost time. I have just noticed the time on the watch - about one minute past ten, and feel a rush of synchronicity as the clock on my computer screen shows 10.07 and I sat down to continue this writing only five minutes ago (after a day's break).
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.
When I re-read my "feelings" piece before starting here, I noticed I described a tickling sensation in response to the ant and suddenly saw a link between the tickling of the ant and the ticking of the watch. (Though is the watch still ticking, I wonder?) Although I did this naturally, this illustrates an important approach to interpreting a dream. If you write down your dream, or tell it to someone, listen to the words you use to describe your dream. They will usually give clues because your writing/speaking voice is a step ahead of your conscious thinking process. The words we use reveal our associations. I looked at this picture and my mind linked the ticking of a watch to the light scrabbling movement of an ant and came up with "tickling" way before my conscious mind became aware of the link. The dreaming mind uses plays on words, associations, links, puns and visual cliches as one of the prime methods of illustrating a concept. Watch for these.
Which brings us to the symbolism of the watch. Perhaps it is another dream play on words: "watch out!" Aside from the obvious symbolism of measuring time and keeping time, this watch has compass points on its dial. Compass points may indicate questions of personal direction, of personal magnetism (?magnetic north), or of spiritual or commercial outlook (eastern spirituality, western capitalism). Dreams sometimes use North to indicate the head, or thinking, and South to indicate the heart, or feeling.
And what of the symbolism of the time shown on the watch? 10.01 is a mirror image, perhaps a turning point in the dreamer's life (the 10 turns itself around the dot to 01.) It may signify "when you were just past ten years old" or "just over ten years ago", or "just over ten months ago" and so on.
An ant labours hard on behalf of the ant community. Ants carry food and scraps that seem small to us, but that often outsize the ant. Working together, in unison, they build huge ant nests, provide for the communal young and clear food and dead insects from our homes. We can find ants irritating, invasive and pervasive. They can also bite and hurt us. Any of these issues, feelings or traits may be symbolised by ants in a dream, but it is how YOU see and relate to ants that is of key importance. Your dream: your symbolism.
Look at how symbols interact in a dream or freeze-frame dream image such as this. Do the watch and the ant add up to a feeling of the time it takes to build something worthwhile .. tick by tock, crumb by crumb? What other associations can YOU see between an ant and a watch?
The watch is half-buried. Things buried in a dream are things buried in the unconscious, or issues put to rest. Resurfacing from burial suggests issues resurfacing into consciousness - things "coming up" from the past.
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!
- Why is the watch lying on the sand?
- Is the owner searching for the watch?
- Has the watch been lost or thrown away?
- Is the watch being buried or is it re-surfacing?
- How long has the watch been buried?
- How long has the watch been laying on the surface of the sand?
- Is the time shown on the watch correct?
- If the watch has stopped, when did it stop and why?
- Will someone find the watch?
- Will the original owner of the watch find it?
- Will the person who finds the watch wear it?
- The ant is walking in a SE direction. Do the letters SE mean anything to you?
- Which area of your body is SE? What feelings do you hold in this part of your body?
- Where is the ant going?
- Look at your answer to Q14: was the ant going to or from home?
- Look at your answer to Q15: what kind of journey is the ant undertaking?
- Look at your answer to Q16: are you taking this kind of journey in your life, or would you like to?
- How do time and direction (the watch and its compass points) affect your feelings about your answer to Q17?
- What is the ant thinking?
- What is the ant feeling?
- What is the watch feeling?
- Look at your answer to Q2: what are you searching for in your current life situation?
- Look at your answer to Q3: what do you feel has been lost or thrown away in your current life situation?
- Look at your answer to Q5: what happened in your life this long ago?
- Look at your answer to Q6: what began to surface this long ago?
- Look at your answers to Q19 and Q20. Where, in your current life situation do you have these feelings?
- Are you satisfied with the direction of your life right now?
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