Image Sixty-Seven: 1st December 2004. Photo by Bryan Simpson (Ph 041 9546 058)
Trees
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 invigorated by the smell of the damp earth after a night of rain following a fire. The blackened ground and a slight smokiness lingering in the air promise the excitement of renewal: what will grow here now that this space has been cleared? Sunrise in the distance adds to this feeling of anticipation. Everything feels right. A new era dawns.
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.
A tree may represent you and your life. The roots may represent your origins and the trunk your main direction or chosen path, while the branches may symbolise the many ways in which you have branched out, followed a variety of pathways and expressed yourself. The growing tips may represent your current growth or search for direction.
A single tree can also symbolise an issue in your life. The roots may represent the origins of the issue (an event, feeling or belief), the trunk the strength or age of the issue and the branches the ways in which the issue has permeated into your life or the various aspects of the issue that you may wish to consider.
Although there are other trees in this image, the focus is on two trees and the roots or branches of fallen trees. The two trees suggest two prominent issues being considered. These trees are leaning towards one side. Dreams often use puns and word play. Could the dreamer be ‘leaning towards’ something here? Or have these trees been subjected to the force of strong winds, suggesting the dreamer is feeling under pressure, feeling weakened or over-accommodating of another’s needs or a situation?
There are exposed tree roots in the foreground. These suggest the roots of an issue or belief have recently been exposed in the dreamer’s life. The trees those roots once supported are dead and gone, either burned or rotted away. We often make decisions in life based on beliefs we learned in childhood or beliefs originating from traumatic circumstances. Personal and spiritual growth requires us to discover the roots of our deepest beliefs and question them, perhaps pulling them out, examining them and replacing them with healthier beliefs. The old, dead and decaying roots here suggest this is what has happened.
Burning may represent burnout (exhaustion) in a dream, or anger (burning anger), or a feeling of ‘being burnt’ (hurt) by something. Yet burning also clears space for new growth.
The time of day is significant. Is this sunrise (a new beginning) or sunset (an ending)?
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!
1. Is there a smell in the air? Of what?
2. What time of day is it?
3. How did you get here?
4. What are you wearing?
5. What killed these roots or trunks lying on the earth?
6. How long ago did this happen?
7. How old are the two leaning trees?
8. Why are those two trees still alive?
9. Why are the two trees leaning over?
10. Will the two trees survive long?
11. Would the two trees be healthier if they were upright?
12. What would need to happen for them to grow upright?
13. If they were upright, what would they gain?
14. What would they miss?
15. Look at your answer to Q6. What happened in your life this long ago?
16. Look at your answer to Q7. What began in your life this long ago or what happened to you when you were that age?
17. Look at your answer to Q8. How does this apply to what keeps you alive and surviving?
18. Look at your answer to Q9. Who or what in your life is like the force that causes the trees to lean?
19. Why do you allow the leaning?
20. Listen – the dead roots have left a message for you in the wind. What are they saying?
21. Imagine planting new life in this newly cleared earth. What are you ready to introduce and grow in your life?
Visit our Print Gallery
The Dream Alchemy Gallery
Quotes from Jane Teresa's book, Dream Alchemy, combined with Michael's photographic images, for you to frame.
Michael's Dream Sight Gallery
Photographic images set to Jane Teresa's dream insights.
|
