On Realising Potential

"I feel my creativity has awakened and that I am full, like a rose in bloom."
Michaela

"To my amazement, Brad is sorting out some paints. He suggests I look in the cupboard where I discover a brand of paints I’m not familiar with. They seem luminescent, which prompts me to say ‘I fear my talent isn’t quite up to the quality of these paints! I’d probably just waste them at present. Maybe in six to twelve months....’ ‘Stop putting yourself down!’ he admonishes me. ‘Just try them. You might surprise yourself! Fear of not being good enough stops the flow of your imagination. Just do it!’"
Lee

Many of the dreams in this book changed lives because they gave the dreamer a glimpse of their full potential, or showed them how and why they were restricting their development, or gave them much needed inspiration or motivation to ‘just do it’.

Going for gold often requires the courage to break the rules, to act according to your intuition rather than society’s expectations. Fiona’s dream gave her the inspiration to go out and change her life, regardless of convention. As she remarks: ‘Everything Simon and I did was in defiance of the laws of commonsense and I have never regretted it for a moment.’

Susannah was physically ill and emotionally run down. Life seemed to be dealing her the kind of blows that sap the self-motivation required to turn circumstances around. A deceased relative came to the rescue through Susannah’s dreams, urging her to put her money into doing up her house as an investment to solve their financial problems. She also spent many dream hours teaching her an appreciation for the art of pottery blue bowls in particular. This much needed dream inspiration fuelled Susannah’s drive to further fulfil her potential.

Peter’s dream provided the final motivation he needed to fulfil a dream he had held for two decades.

River 17
Peter
The Water is Perfectly Safe 1994

~~~~~~dream~~~~~~

I was transformed into a situation which I remember as being a bus terminal which was familiar to me: it was in New Zealand. I remember coming across a fountain which was more like a waterfall, coming down from the side of a building. I was standing across the road, looking at it. There was a platform about half way up this fountain and the water was really turbulent underneath it. There were some little boys, lined up, along the platform, and there was an older man who was trying to coerce and encourage them to jump into the water. The water appeared to be hot. It may not have been hot, it just had that appearance. In other words, it was a dangerous situation to go into.

The man was saying to them ‘Jump, It’ll be OK’, but he was using really mean, foul techniques to do it. All I remember is going up to this guy and saying ‘Hey, listen, don’t do that , that’s wrong. You shouldn’t get them to do that, they’re really scared.’ He was really aggro about that, saying ‘Hey, it’s none of your business, you stay away.’

I went away and I kept on feeling guilty about the fact that these boys were being used by this older guy. He wasn’t recognisable as anyone I know, neither were the boys. Eventually I managed to get up on the platform and I said to the guy ‘You stay out of my way. Get out of my way. I’m not interested in you.’ I went up to the first boy and I remember talking to him and saying ‘Listen, it’ll be OK. Everything’s all right. The water is perfectly safe. There’s no problem with the water. I will jump in it with you, and I’ll lead you down the platform, down the ladder (there was a ladder that led down to it, like a diving platform), and into that water. Then we’ll wash ourselves and then we’ll be on our way.

The significance of the bus terminal was in there as well: it appeared to be transportation out of that area. So gradually, one by one, I led these boys down into the water. We got into the water, swam and I said ‘Look, see! It’s OK. It’s not going to hurt you. It’s just that this guy was doing it wrong. He was trying to use trickery and deceit and lying.’

After that I can’t remember much, except that there were some little girls that were in the dream before the little boys. I think the girls were being caned or hurt by an older woman. I can’t remember the detail but I do know that I managed to stop this lady from caning and hurting them. Again there was no recognition of the older lady or the little girls.

I do remember quite vividly, in both situations, with the little girls and the little boys, everything was ‘OK, come with me and I’ll take you by the hand. You don’t need to be whipped or hurt.’

~~~~~~

I’m thirty-six years old. I was an adoptee at birth and I’ve always known that I was adopted. My adoptive mother died two and a half years ago and that really threw me out because I realised I would have to do something about finding my natural parents. If my adoptive parents were dying, it could be that my natural parents were dying too.

The only thing was that I didn’t want to hurt my father. I remember as a little kid, my father would just encourage us so much and he would always try and do things for us and, like most adoptees, you feel very guilty if you think about finding your natural parents. You don’t want to hurt your adoptive parents. Even my sister - I didn’t want to hurt her.

I was wondering also whether there were brothers or sisters, and with marriage difficulties I really wondered about my past.

I was really feeling all that when I had the dream. I felt a real lack of identity. Searching wasn’t foremost in my mind although it was something that I was contemplating doing.

I was burnt out after the events of the last two years. We’ve had a difficult business here, paying back debts. I was on sleeping tablets and I had just come off them about two weeks before the dream. At the end of November, just before the dream, I went to see the doctor and he said I was in a state of exhaustion. I had a constant headache, stomach aches, cramps, the whole lot. He just said to me ‘You’ve got to knock off, you can’t keep on going the way you’re doing’.

What really struck me about the dream was the kids. I really like children. Unlike a lot of males it was always my dream to have children and to see kids badly treated, to see someone purposely trying to use children and abuse them, really affected me a great deal. It was a natural reaction of mine to go up and try and assist the children. I woke up thinking ‘How can anyone do that?’

Peter had phoned me on the Dream Talkback segment one week after this dream, to ask my opinion and advice.

I remembered you saying, in the past, that the female figure is the creative figure, whereas the male figure is the logical figure. I thought ‘Well maybe I’m still too logical. I need to become more creative’. In actual fact it wasn’t totally that.

Your interpretation was that I was to have confidence in what I was doing. It was about having confidence and the need to identify little Peter. After talking to you it was just like ‘OK. Do it. Don’t muck around as you have done for about the last twenty years’. I’ve wanted to do this for about twenty years and I’ve always found an excuse not to do it.

So, with confidence, I sent away for my birth certificate. It happened so quick. It took only eight days to come back. The name on the birth certificate was so unusual that when I rang the New Zealand Directory Service I had my father on the line in a few minutes. It took a total of nine days between the day I sent the birth certificate away and the day I was talking to my father on the telephone.

I was going to New Zealand anyway so I made sure that I made contact with them while I was over there, although I was only there for one week. I’d met my father for a few days, then he said ‘Come, round before you fly out. I’ve got a few people for you to meet.’ In two hours I met my grandfather and grandmother on my father’s side, two nephews, my full brother and my full sister. That was the day I left for Australia. It was weird. And as of a week ago (January 1995), I’ve got a niece too! I’m sure if I wasn’t so tied up with work (I guess I’m a bit of a workaholic) I’d be going through a period of shock now.

My mother had died two years ago, just after my adoptive mother. My parents had been married when they adopted me out and their marriage broke up five years later. My father remarried and had another son who was also adopted out. He’s since found him. I saw a photo of him: his name is Peter too.

Adoption is one of those things that you can never describe. Unless you’ve actually been adopted you can never understand it. That’s not putting anyone down or saying that they don’t try and understand, but it’s very difficult to do that. I do a bit of writing, creative writing and poetry, so I put it into poems. I don’t know whether it’s a regret, but I have a feeling I just wish I’d done it earlier.

It’s very hard to describe the feeling you have when you find out that your mother has died. I wrote a eulogy to her, a poem, which is called ‘Gwen’. I wrote part of the poem for other people as well as for myself, just to let them know, because people do ask you how you feel and you’ve got to have some kind of answer for that. You can’t just keep it to yourself because that’s only going to do you harm as well.

Gwen

Far flung stories of likeness past
So much away from my present caste
All messed up in an orderly file
All heaped on the puzzlement pile.

I’ve felt the pain of a mirrored mind
And denied a push of the likeness child
Now I’ve heard that the search is through
Now my thoughts will envision you.

To the mum that I never knew
Thank you Gwen for my life anew
Turn to my loss and a life to see
Close by your side, no escape, but free.....

I think I did mention to my father that the dream spurred me on, but he is very unemotional. I guess I’m unemotional too. I’m a mere male! I was quite embarrassed when I showed him the poem but he really appreciated it. I guess I’m really the sort of person who likes to keep myself to myself except when something extremely personal happens: that’s really weird, I know, but that’s the sort of person I am. My father’s a bit of a business guy so we keep in contact over the fax.

After the dream, and after I discovered my father again, I just went into shock and ended up again at the doctors. It was an extremely stressful time. I took it easy on the week’s break and went sailing, fishing and all the natural things that I enjoy doing and so this year I’m feeling very strong. I’m riding my pushie every morning at 5 am for an hour and I physically feel a lot better.

I had another couple of important dreams before this one, one of which was about a new direction in life which you also interpreted for me. You said I’ve got to let go of my logical self and start being creative and have a change of direction and that started me thinking that I’d been working hard all year and thinking ‘business, business, business’ all that time. Where’s my creative self gone and where has my personal life gone? The year before I had been thinking about the adoption and other issues and it spurred me on. I play in a band now. I had dropped out of music for a long time before that and I thought I’d better start laying music again, so I did! It’s going very well. We have a residency at a local restaurant now.

Searching for my natural parents was a very stressful time but it was something that I had to do. It was also such a great way of improving my self-esteem. Towards the end of last year my self-esteem had just plummeted and I’m not naturally a person whose self-esteem is low. Adoption does affect people, but now I have self-esteem that I never even knew that I had. You just know who you are and you’ve got something to identify with so naturally your health is going to be better too.

Jane’s Interpretation

Peter’s main feeling in the dream was distress at seeing the children badly treated, abused and driven to jump into the scary, turbulent waters. His reaction was to dismiss the old man and gently coax the boys into the water himself, in a loving step by step manner. He also joined them on their journey, cleansing himself in the water at the same time. The need to go through the water was unquestionable, but the dream indicated the best way to approach the situation.

The old man was the ‘hard task master’ part of Peter. He was the driving force, the workaholic. Working hard was perhaps a way of denying his real needs, just as the ‘hard task master’ was perceived as using ‘trickery, deceit and lying’. There is a time and a place for disciplining ourselves, but the dream showed the tender, vulnerable, childlike side of Peter (the little boys: his ‘inner child’) who was suffering from this approach. His ‘inner child’ was multiplied into a number of children in the dream simply to grab Peter’s attention. (Dreams often emphasise a key symbol either by making it larger or by duplicating it.) Peter’s business and personal life were under a lot of stress, and this ‘inner child’ was crying loudly for attention. This was a time in Peter’s life to go backwards in order to go forwards. He needed to go back to his origins, enter through that turbulent water (turbulent emotions), cleanse himself and then be free to continue his journey. Peter needed to command his ‘hard task master’ to stand aside because his harsh demands were frightening the little Peter inside.

Little Peter had fears to face: the fear of what he might discover about his natural grandparents (given his own marriage difficulties), the fear of hurting his adoptive parents through revealing this need to trace his natural ancestry and so on. The grown up Peter needed to stop driving himself hard, take control and compassionately take little Peter’s hand, identify with him (acknowledge his vulnerable, childlike side) and gently and confidently enter the water.

The confidence Peter felt in enacting this in his dream made it easier for him to do the same in his waking life.

‘Then we’ll wash ourselves and we’ll be on our way,’ he promised the boys. This indicated that the journey of the inner child, into the water, through the fear and towards discovering his natural family would free him to ‘be on his way’, to continue his journey forward in life. The setting was New Zealand so it was easy for Peter to connect the necessary journey with the search for his natural parents in New Zealand. The bus terminal underlined not only that this was a journey, but that it would represent a ‘turning point’ (as the buses turn around) in his life. Perhaps the word ‘terminal’ also reflected the ‘end’ of one journey: every ending signals a new beginning, as indeed Peter found by gaining the confidence to follow the dream.

Ocean Dip
Vi
The Tree 1990

~~~~~~dream~~~~~~

I was in a tree like a bird in a nest. I knew it was the tree of knowledge, of life. I was perfectly safe, completely enclosed and no-one could see me. I was receiving strength from the tree, making me strong. There was a beautiful light coming between the branches. I could hear the birds singing all around me.

 ~~~~~~

My life was quite humdrum before the dream. I’d had a series of dreams, but none of the others were as vivid as this. It left me wanting to be able to understand more about the tree of life and all it could give me.

The interpretation was clear: it was time to stop sitting around. I realised I had to be in charge of my life, to gain knowledge in any way I could, through books and people. I had to get off my rear and start doing something.

I started the changes the next day and four years later I am still making progress. I feel my health and life have improved because the dream has made me more in charge of my life.

Jane’s Interpretation

Life is much simpler when our dreams give us both the symbol and its meaning in the same breath. The tree frequently appears in a dream as a symbol of the dreamer, its roots representing the dreamer’s origins or earthiness, the branches being the dreamer’s divergent interests, the growing tips his or her present development and so on. The tree analogy extends to the type of tree reflecting the dreamer’s personality, its health and the dreamer’s state of health, its season his or her stage of life and so on. In other dreams the tree can appear as the ‘family tree’, or may appear to describe a cliched feeling in the dreamer’s life, such as feeling ‘uprooted’, ‘out on a limb’, full of ‘dead wood’, ‘out of her tree’ and so on. Vi did not need to consider these because she knew she was perched in the ‘tree of knowledge’.

The birds, being symbolic of the soul, were singing, just as the dream suggests her very soul would become inspired through advancing her knowledge of life and involvement in it. Vi’s dream felt safe and was sensually charged, vivid. This combination of positive emotion and heightened sensual awareness can sustain the dreamer for days, even weeks. I have often used a dream image to inspire me to complete a task or to give me the courage to make a change or take a new step, just as this dream inspired Vi to step out and explore her world.