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Chapter 5 Bizarre,
bewitched, bothered & bewildered In this chapter you will learn
how to interpret bizarre symbols in your dreams, how to deal with insights
about yourself that make you feel uncomfortable, and how to let go of the past
and choose a better future. Along the way you’ll face some of the most
bewitching, bothering and bewildering of recurring dreams, and learn to steer
your way through fear and into the light of love and understanding. But first,
the bizarre. The
bizarre In the previous chapters you have
learned that many dream symbols have similar meanings for most people. Water,
for example, commonly represents your emotional state, whereas houses and
buildings tend to symbolise your state of mind. You have learned also that
personal meanings override the more universal symbols in dreams. Spiders often symbolise female
power because in some species the female spider eats the male after mating. The
symbolism is enhanced by the spider’s ability to sense what is happening at a
distance through the vibrations of her web. To most of us these ideas resonate
with female intuition (sensing the unseen) and other aspects of female power.
Over the years I’ve rarely been asked to interpret a spider dream that didn’t
relate to the dreamer’s inner power, or to struggles with female power in the
outer world. However, if you have just completed a PhD thesis on the
classification of spiders, then a spider in your dream might have more of a
personal symbolism such as ‘completion of work’, or ‘deadly boring’, or ‘labour
of love’, or ‘passion of my life’ or whatever! The strangest symbols can pop up
in dreams. Sometimes they have a universal significance (a common meaning for
most people) and sometimes they are entirely personal. Either way there are
methods you can apply to work out the meaning of a dream symbol which seems
totally bizarre to you - whether or not they turn out to be personal or
universal after all. STEP
1 Last chapter’s Step 10 suggested
that you choose a dream which featured a really bizarre object or symbol, and
write it down. You are going to use several different interpretation approaches
to determine the meaning of your bizarre symbol. You may wish to practise each
method on a different dream symbol. If so, now is the time to select and write
down the other dreams you wish to work on. STEP
2 For each bizarre symbol you have
chosen, take a blank sheet of paper. Write your symbol at the top of your sheet
as a title. Have you ever dreamed of a pear
tree? Not a bizarre symbol really, but nevertheless, while you leave your sheet
of paper and symbol titles to one side to simmer on the back-burner of your
mind for a few minutes, focus on ‘pear tree’. Does anything come to mind? Chapter 11 of my first paperback book,
"Sleep On It ... and change your life" (published by HarperCollins Extract
from "Sleep on it ... and change your life" by Jane Teresa Anderson Chapter 11, Personal Symbols,
pages 119-121 "Mention ‘pear tree’ to me
and my mind immediately flits back to my final year at university when I lived
in the basement of a beautiful, stately, Victorian stone house in Scotland.
Peering through the barred cellar windows, amidst the smell of damp and mildew,
I watched the pear tree and the collared doves which sang there. My professor,
who owned the house, told me the pear tree featured in a well-known, but not
well-written, Victorian novel. Strangely, it was while browsing through a
second-hand bookshop in What’s all this got to do with
dreams? Just about everything! We’ve all played word association
games at some stage. The popular idea of a psychiatrist used to be someone who
sat beside your reclined body, bouncing words to and fro, hurriedly scribbling
down your responses for deeper analysis. I might have wandered along my own
track, starting with ‘pear’ and ending with ‘gipsy’. I wonder how many other
people would link pears to gipsies? We tend to do this in dreams too.
A dream interpreter might look at my dream of, for example, my grandmother
looking for four-leaf clovers on ‘Ah,’ you might think, ‘that just
goes to show that dreams can be mish-mashed jumbles of old memories randomly
surfacing and mixed into a dream cocktail!’ My experience as a dream
researcher and dream therapist has convinced me that this is rarely, if ever,
the case. If I had dreamed of my grandmother on The point is, associations
stemming from the dreamer’s life, history, thoughts and philosophies will
appear in dreams, and these personal symbols will always be more important than
universal or shared symbols. Difficulties in interpretation
arise when the dreamer is not consciously aware of his unconscious associations
or ‘lost’ memories. The fact that the dream has recently surfaced does imply
that these forgotten details are no longer beyond retrieval." (End of extract.) STEP
3 Bizarre
symbol-busting method 1 The
free list method Take one of your Step 2 sheets of
paper and let a series of associated words and feelings flow out and form a
list beneath the title. The secret here is NOT to pause and think, but to JUST
WRITE, letting your unconscious express itself with as little interference as
possible from your conscious mind. The meaning of your bizarre dream
symbol may emerge when you write your list in this way. Compare all the
possibilities on your list with your original dream. If the rest of the
interpretation suddenly falls into place when compared with something on your
list, or if you get a ‘goosebump’ feeling of recognition, then you’ve decoded
your personal dream symbol correctly. You might wish to start a
dictionary of your personal dream symbols using a notebook with A-Z page tags. Your dream symbols may change in
meaning as your dreams progress. The symbol ‘purple duckling’ might originally
represent ‘fear of the unknown’ to you personally, for example, but after
working with a series of purple duckling dreams and overcoming your fear of the
unknown, the purple duckling may appear in future dreams as a personal symbol
of ‘facing old fears and overcoming them’. Don’t worry - you’ll be so good at
dream interpretation by the time your personal dream symbols transform in
meaning that the changes won’t pass you by! You’ll notice - and you’ll
celebrate your progress! You may wish to apply the same
symbol-busting method to your other Step 3 sheets of paper, or you may wish to
use a different sheet/symbol for each of this chapter’s exercises. STEP 4 Bizarre
symbol-busting method 2 The
poetry method Take one of your Step 2 sheets of
paper and, again without thinking, let a free form poem flow from your pen or
keyboard. It doesn’t have to rhyme or have any form or meter. It doesn’t even
have to make sense. Just let it happen. Here’s an example, starting with the
symbol ‘blue salt twist’: ‘Blue
Salt Twist’ Packet
of potato chips STEP
5 Before reading further, make sure
you have written down your free form poem. My ‘blue salt twist’ wouldn’t win
any poetry prizes, and neither should yours! This is not about perfection or
the art of poetry. This is about discovering the meaning of a bizarre dream
symbol. I let my poem write itself onto my computer without thinking. It took
less than two minutes. The faster you do the exercise, the more your
unconscious mind reveals its associations to the symbol. As you can see, my
symbol represents a number of linked themes. According to the poem these are:
STEP
6 Look through your own free from
poem and list any linked themes you can see, as I have done in the above
example. Also write down any words or phrases in your poem that seem
goosebumpingly potent to you. Now notice how much the layout
and spacing of your poem reveals. (On reflection, my poem's overall shape is a
kind of twist, like the Blue Salt Twist too!) It was only after I had
created my ‘blue salt twist’ example that I noticed the strings of single words
(a word per line) drawing attention to their content. These two parts of the
poem emphasise a feeling of not being able to find the promised good thing and
not being able to communicate regret. The single word isolations emphasise this
feeling of isolation around the issue of unfulfilled promise. Through this poem
I realised the blue salt twist symbolised feelings of sadness and isolation in
childhood around issues of unfulfilled promise. STEP
7 Look at the layout and spacing of
your own poem and record any insights you gain through this. STEP
8 In as few words as you can,
summarise from Steps 6 & 7 what your bizarre symbol means to you. Example "The Blue Salt Twist
symbolises sadness and isolation in childhood around issues of unfulfilled
promise." The Poetry Method of bizarre
symbol-busting is one of the most potent dream interpretation tools. The
insight gained simply by working with one word can be transformative in itself:
and it only takes a few minutes! It works well because free flow poetry is
created largely by the right side of your brain, so input from the more
rational left side is bypassed. The right side of your brain is more adept at
communicating in symbolic form so writing free form poetry taps straight into
your natural understanding of symbolism and especially into the personal symbolism
of your dreams. You may wish to think of free form poetry as coming from your
unconscious mind, rather than from your right brain. That is fine. Both
approaches give a good feel for how this method works so well. Bizarre
symbol-busting method 2 The
dialogue method The following extract from
"Sleep On It ... and change your life" describes the Dialogue Method
and how to use it to work out the personal meaning of your more bizarre symbols.
Extract
from "Sleep On It ... and change your life", by Jane Teresa Anderson Chapter 11, Personal Symbols,
page 123 "Get yourself out of earshot
and relaxed and have a conversation with one of your dream symbols. At first
you will feel absolutely crazy and may also think, ‘This is silly, I’m just
making all this up,’ but bear with it because this is often the most successful
way of finding out why a certain symbol is in your dream. One way is to ask your questions
out loud and imagine you hear the answers. For example: You: Four-leaf
clover, why are you in my dream? Clover: I’m
a symbol of luck, you know that! You: There’s
more to it than that, I know. I had one once. Clover: I
remember when you picked me, it was a sunny day. You: So
why have you come into my dream? Clover: Don’t you remember
that boy (what’s his name?), he pushed you over and tried to steal me? You: Vaguely.
What happened next? Did I keep you? Clover: I wish you did. He
gave you a black eye and soon forgot about me. Why didn’t you stand up for
yourself? You: Is that why
you’re in my dream, to tell me I should stand up for myself? Clover: That’s it. I brought
you a piece of good luck in the end, didn’t I? Even if it took me twenty years
and I had to do it in a dream! Or you may decide to take the
part of the symbol and tell your own story. For example: Clover: I always wanted to
bring someone good luck, but I felt like a needle in a haystack until the day
this beautiful little girl came and plucked me up. She smiled at me, but her
sunshine was overshadowed by the bully ... (etc). I urge you to try this out,
because it works really well. A less bizarre alternative is to type the
conversation (dialogue) straight onto paper, as I have just done in my
imaginary scene! At least you feel a little more academic about the exercise!
Again, the important thing is to do it fast, maintaining a flow, letting the
heart speak, not the head." (End of Extract)
STEP
9 Take one of your Step 2 sheets of
paper and write out a dialogue between yourself and the symbol starting with
you asking a question of your symbol. STEP
10 Summarise in one sentence the
meaning of your symbol according to the dialogue. STEP
11 Choose another of your Step 2
sheets of paper and write the story from the symbol’s point of view (like my
second example, beginning with the four leaf clover). STEP
12 Summarise in one sentence the
meaning of your symbol according to the dialogue. STEP
13 If you need more insight, now is
the time to put your bizarre symbols back into the context of the dreams in
which they appeared. Take each dream and interpret it according to all the
methods you have learned from the last four chapters, adding in the meaning of
your bizarre symbols. Tip Dream Interpretation doesn’t stop
at understanding a single dream. Much insight can be gained by considering a
series of dreams as a group, looking for an overall message. Sometimes your
dreams relentlessly work on the same issue for years, presenting and
re-presenting the issue from all angles until you get it. Summarising the
summaries can often lead to enlightening results. It’s possible, given the way
synchronicities work, that all the dreams you have chosen to work with in this
chapter can be woven together to give an overall picture or message. STEP
14 Go back and look at all the
insights you have gained during this chapter’s work and see if you can
summarise what you have learned about yourself in a few simple sentences. The rest of this chapter is
designed to alert you to some common bewitching, bothering and bewildering
recurring dreams, to help equip you to deal with some of the more difficult and
confrontational areas of dreams and their interpretation. The dream examples
are all fictitious but their themes may be familiar to you as they are based on
the many recurring dreams and recurring dream-like experiences I have collected
from hundreds of people over the years. The
bewitched & bothered The following dreams share a
theme of fear, or a strange lack of fear. Many include physical descriptions of
fear experienced both in the dream state and on waking. It’s common to wake
from a frightening dream in a cold sweat with your heart pounding. This is
because when you are frightened in a dream your physical body releases
adrenalin and suffers all the normal physiological signs of fear. These dreams help
to put the physical symptoms of fear into perspective so that you can look more
deeply into the dreams, what they mean, and how to handle them. Jeannie’s
dream The
evil presence I dream that I wake up in bed to
find a figure dressed in dark clothes with a hood covering its face leaning
over me. It feels evil and I wake up scared stiff, not knowing whether there
really was an evil presence in the room or whether it was all a dream. Notes This kind of dream can come up
when the dreamer feels unable to deal with a difficult issue in life. For
example, Jeannie might be a mother unsure of how to handle suspected abuse of
her child by a relative. Jeannie’s dream might symbolise the issue as an evil
presence. It is showing her that although she may try to dismiss the subject
while she is awake, the inner conflict is alive and well in her dreams. The
issue will ‘haunt’ her until she resolves it. The evil need not be anywhere
near as dramatic as child abuse. We all have different perceptions of what is
evil. Such evil dream presences have represented ex-wives, impending financial
crises, and guilt in these kinds of dreams, for example! They may represent
repressed feelings of anger towards someone in a dreamer who is such a mild and
placid person that ‘evils’ such as anger are repressed so as not to blemish
their ‘good’ character. This leads to the most important
point about these kinds of dreams. You have learned in earlier chapters that
other people in dreams are generally symbolic of aspects of yourself. It follows
that faceless, evil presences are also aspects of yourself confronting you in
your dream, begging for recognition. The evil presence is essentially in your
dream saying, “Hey, face up to me! I’m a part of yourself, a belief or feeling,
like it or not. Deny it awake if you will, but I’ll haunt you in your dreams
until you’re ready to face the fact". (Did you notice the references to
facing and not facing? This is why the evil presence is often ‘faceless’. You,
the dreamer, are not facing the issue and you are not recognising the face in
your dream as being an aspect of yourself. You are denying it.) Of course it may be absolutely
terrifying to have to admit that such an evil presence is an aspect of yourself.
The truth is that we deny, push away or disown thoughts, beliefs and attitudes
we cannot face, believing them to be something quite separate from ourselves.
Psychologically this is also known as dissociation. Dissociation is the process
of dissociating (becoming separate from) an aspect (belief, feeling, thought,
attitude) of yourself or an experience you’ve had. A common dissociation occurs for
people going through a painful relationship break up, where the only way the
person is able to cope with the situation is to block out the pain, to become numb
to it, to repress it, to deny that it exists. The person quite simply
dissociates from the emotional pain of the break up and usually has to deal
with it later in one way or another, frequently in dreams such as this. And what about Jeannie’s dream as
an example of dissociating from a really tough, confronting issue? If her evil
presence is related to suspected abuse she was denying, in what way is the
dream evil presence an aspect of herself? It goes something like this:
Jeannie is unable to face up to (and therefore take action on) the suspected
abuse of her child. She is abusing herself and her right to an abuse-free life.
More importantly she is also abusing her children’s right to an abuse-free life
by taking no action. Jeannie has an aspect of herself that is self-abusive, but
she denies this. She sees herself as good, possibly as being the peace-maker
within the family. Who is she fooling? Who is she abusing? Her dream is begging
her to face up to owning an abusive aspect of herself. The healing process such a dream
begs is for the dreamer to consciously acknowledge that the evil presence is an
aspect of herself, to understand why she dissociated from it, to take it back
on board (to own it again), and then to deal with it appropriately. This is a process
of moving from dissociation to integration. In Jeannie’s case the healing
process is to wake up to the fact that what she sees as her ‘good’ or
‘peace-making’ qualities have been covering up for her fear of facing up to the
issue of abuse, and that her fear has added to the abusive situation. She then
needs to ‘own’ back what she has ‘disowned’ and realise that where she saw
‘good and evil’ she needs to see ‘abuse and non-abuse’ instead, without
judgement of good versus evil. In this way she can feel okay about
acknowledging that she has been adding to the abuse by ignoring the issue or
covering it up. Then, from this more ‘whole’, integrated perspective, she can
seek help to discover ways to become non-abusive and to confront and dissolve
the abuse going on at all levels within her family. In doing this, Jeannie’s
abusive aspect of herself dissolves too because, in addressing the issue, she
is no longer being abusive. The full process, if followed
through, is always the same: To heal you need to own what you
have disowned, to bring back on board what you have denied so that you can
examine it and take action. In the taking of the action, the ‘evil presence’
often disappears. What is evil and what is not evil
is an individual perception. For example, a person might regard aspects of
their sexuality as undesirable and dissociate from them. Over years the
disowned sexuality may gather momentum and appear in dreams in more intense
guises until it becomes an ‘evil presence’. As the dreamer goes through the
healing process of owning what she has disowned, she may discover that her
repressed sexuality was not so evil after all. She may be ready to take it back
on board and keep it too, becoming sexually more complete as a result.
Repressed sexuality appearing as an evil presence in a dream is very common. So, you see, evil is not always
evil. The dream symbol simply shows you what you have repressed and disowned in
the name of a good, ‘clean’ record in your waking life. Mark’s
dream Witch-chase I used to have a recurring dream
that a witch was chasing me and my heart used to pound. I would wake up in a
cold sweat. The recurring dream changed for a while in that I knew the witch
wanted to kiss me. It reminded me of playing ‘kiss chase’ at primary school so
I used to call the dream ‘Witch-chase’ but the witch was much scarier than the
girls at school! The last time I had the dream I’m sure I nearly vomited in my
sleep when the witch caught me and started to kiss me, but as she kissed me she
changed into a beautiful princess and I was ecstatic. Notes This dream is a common example of
the integration process occurring within a dream. Mark would need to work out
why he saw his female side (his Yin) as a witch in his recurring dream to begin
with. The most enlightening point of the dream is that it is when you FACE YOUR
FEARS that they disappear to be replaced by something quite beautiful. You
can’t run away from your fears forever, but you can transform fear into love by
facing and embracing the fear. The Mark character in Mark’s dream wasn’t so
bold, but fortunately his unconscious took charge and made sure the magic kiss
took place! Mark transformed fear of his female side into love and acceptance
of his female side. Francesca’s
dream Paralysed I don’t know if this is part of a
dream, but sometimes, just before I wake up, I feel a heavy weight on my chest
and I can’t breathe. I feel literally ‘frightened stiff’. Sometimes I try to
shout out to my husband to help me, but all that comes out of my mouth is a
weak rasp. Notes As you fall asleep the nerves to
your muscles below your neck are de-sensitised to prevent you from getting up
and acting out your dreams. This results in ‘sleep paralysis’ which usually
disappears as you wake up. Sometimes the process is slightly out of synch and
you may begin to wake up while still in sleep paralysis, and at other times you
may start to tune into the paralysis feeling while you are dreaming. Either way
this can result in the kind of frightening experience Francesca describes.
Being unable to call out is another side effect of this normal physiological
response in many people, while others can chatter aloud relatively easily in
their sleep. Real chest pain, numb arms or even itchy mosquito bites can work
their way from your physical body into your dreams too. At the same time a dream may
include these feelings as symbolic representations of an inner conflict, so
heaviness on the chest may be symbolic in a dream of feeling there’s something
you ‘need to get off your chest’ (something you need to tell, express or admit,
for example). In the same way, dreaming of being unable to call out may
symbolise not expressing yourself powerfully enough, being unable to get your
message across, or being unable to alert someone (or, more likely, an aspect of
yourself) about something. The best approach is to relax and
know that the process is either physiological or a dream sensation and that,
either way, you’re going to wake up and be fully mobile soon. Then have a look
at any dream details you can recall around the physical sensations and
interpret the dream using the methods you have learned in this book. If the
sensations were dream symbolism you’ll soon know when your interpreted dream
feels so right. Verity’s
dream The
follower This dream used to frighten me,
but over the years I’ve got used to it and almost feel comforted by it. I’m not
even sure if it’s a dream or a kind of familiar ghost. I get into bed and just
as my head hits the pillow I feel a man get in beside me. I can’t see him (though
my eyes are closed tight!) but it’s almost as if he follows my exact movements
as he gets into bed after me. I can even feel the sheets settle back into
position afterwards. Notes This kind of experience is most
likely a stronger manifestation of dissociation (described under Jeannie’s
dream of the evil presence earlier in this chapter). Verity has disowned an
aspect of herself (as he is a man, he is probably part of her ‘male side’, her
Yang: her assertive, rational, intellectual, competitive, authoritative self
which relates to the outer world). Our dissociated aspects often ‘haunt’ us emotionally
in our dreams and sometimes this haunting feeling spills over into waking life
- particularly when we’re on the border of sleep, as Verity probably is, climbing
into bed, tired. As you have learned earlier, the brain interprets the world
not as it is, but how it believes it should be. It is very easy for the brain
to perceive a real man/ghost who exists outside Verity’s body to fit in with
its knowledge of the banished ‘male side’. This ‘shadowing’ effect is one
reason why our dissociated aspects are sometimes known as our ‘shadow side’. Another explanation for this
phenomenon is a kind of time-delay between your movements and the brain
registering them, so that you experience a sensation which is almost like a
replay, or physical deja vu. Bob’s
Dream Lifting
out of my body Sometimes as I’m falling asleep I
feel my body lift off the bed. There are two ways this can happen. If it feels
like I’m lifting out by myself I’m a little bit scared, but if it feels like
someone’s pulling me out I’m absolutely terrified. Notes Physiologically this can be
another sensation related to the numbing of the physical body during sleep
paralysis (see Francesca’s dream) or a form of dissociation (see Jeannie’s
dream) in which you become the dissociated part for once. In the case of
dissociation the cure is to work on identifying which aspect you feel you have
dissociated from your waking personality and then work on the process of
integration as described in the notes for Jeannie’s evil presence dream. You
can apply your dream interpretation skills to any dream detail you recall
surrounding your experience, to get started on this integration process. However, if you’ve had a genuine
out of the body experience you’ll certainly know the difference! These are
often accompanied by whooshing sounds in your ears, a raised heart beat and
absolute knowledge that the ‘real’ you is not the person whose body is laying
on the bed. Even if this could be argued as a physiological effect it is a
remarkable demonstration of the existence of consciousness at a point outside
the physical boundaries of the human body. Candice’s
dream Walking
with the devil I was walking along when I heard
a noise behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw the devil walking a few
paces behind. The strange thing was that he didn’t scare me. He caught up with
me, linked his arm into mine and we walked on. I felt as if we had a whole lot
to talk about. He felt familiar and I felt comfortable. It was only when I woke
up that I got scared. Notes By now you should be a step ahead
of me, unlike the devil who was a step behind Candice until she had this dream!
The devil is a symbolic dream character and Candice would need to apply her
People Method dream interpretation skills to work out what he represents for
her. He may be one of her ‘shadow sides’, especially as he has been following
behind her, like a shadow, until her illuminating dream. Candice’s dream is
similar to Mark’s Witch-chase dream. It captures the moment of integration, or,
at least, it reflects Candice’s readiness for acknowledgment of the dissociated
devil aspect of herself and her readiness to bring him back on board, to own
him and then to decide where to go from there. The devil dream is fairly common
for people who have grown up under the influence of a strict religion that
attributes the evils of the world to the work of the devil. As a result the
person often dissociates thoughts which they have been told are the work of the
devil. The devil character then frequently appears in dreams to symbolise these
dissociated aspects and the dream storylines reflect the dreamer’s conflicts
around these issues. If this was Candice’s situation,
then the dream marks the point at which she is no longer scared by the kind of
thoughts and feelings that her religious upbringing attributed to the work of
the devil. Instead she is ready to acknowledge them as a valid part of herself:
indeed, she can now become more whole. Naturally they have a “whole" lot
more to "talk about" now. He felt familiar and comfortable because he
was a part of herself. Candice only became scared when she woke up and applied
her waking-world’s symbolism to the devil character. The
bewildered The three common recurring dreams
illustrated here are usually totally bewildering to the dreamer when she wakes
up. How dreadful to discover that you’ve just calmly killed your mother, had
your throat slit open, or enjoyed sex with someone at the office you can’t
stand! Read on: Melanie’s
dream Killing
my mother I’m so appalled by this dream
that it makes me feel uncomfortable admitting to it. I killed my mother. It
felt like another chore, just like cleaning the kitchen floor or hanging out
the washing. I buried her in the garden, planted a tree over her, washed my
hands, and started to cook dinner. When I woke up and remembered my dream I was
horrified. Notes Life is change. As you grow,
physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, you change. Ideally you keep
on changing, growing and evolving towards wisdom and enlightenment throughout
your life. Change is also presented around you, challenging you to adapt and
change yet again. Change is a process of death of the old and birth of the new.
Death of an old aspect of the self creates space for the birth of a new one. A
new attitude blossoms to replace an old attitude as it is laid to rest. Issues of change in dreams are
often symbolised by death and birth. Melanie’s dream has nothing whatsoever to
do with repressed desires to kill her mother, of course. Neither does it reveal
any lack of love for her Mum. Instead Melanie’s mother, in her dream, most
likely symbolises ‘the mother in Melanie’ or personality aspects of her mother
that Melanie has taken on. Killing her mother symbolises putting an end to ‘the
mother in Melanie’ or to certain personality traits, attitudes, beliefs or
behaviours that Melanie has adopted from her mother, or which have been the
source of inner conflict for her. In her dream Melanie finally
disposed of this aspect of her self in readiness for birth of the new,
symbolised by the tree she planted which will now grow from the old. The rest
of the dream symbolises a cleansing process (the household chores and the
washing of the hands), so obviously Melanie has been going through a cleansing
process and is now ready to let go of old attitudes. Did you notice the dream
pun clue to the interpretation? Melanie was ‘washing her hands’, just as we
‘wash our hands’ of a situation. Look out for dream puns and clichés as they
can be valuable dream interpretation clues. David’s
dream Slit
throat A gang of angry thugs came
towards me and slit my throat. Although I was frightened as they approached, I
felt no pain when my throat was cut open. I felt an instant calm. I watched the
blood flow from my throat and it felt like a release. It seemed a reasonable
thing to happen and I felt much more at ease. I woke up refreshed. Notes Sometimes we feel pain in dreams
and sometimes we don’t. We tend to think of dreams as being primarily visual
with some audio thrown in, but many dreams deliver sensations of taste, smell,
touch and pain. Pain in a dream is often symbolic, so a dream where no pain is
felt, such as David’s, may indicate a healthy outcome: no emotional pain. You will be learning more about
the symbolism of body parts in the next chapter. The throat often represents
communication, and David’s common dream of having his throat cut open
frequently symbolises opening communication channels. Blood flowing painlessly
in a dream often symbolises a release and flow of life force (blood) and, as in
David’s example, the feeling of release and calm in the dream underlines the
need to release something through more open communication and to let the life
force flow freely. The angry thugs, of course, were
an aspect of David, so he would need to apply his People Method dream
interpretation techniques to discover which aspect of himself they represented.
It’s most likely that David has been repressing anger about a situation and he
has not been able to open up and express his feelings. By confronting his anger
in the dream he realises that opening up and flowing with his natural life
force is the answer, rather than damming his emotions through holding them
back. The promise of release is still with him when he wakes. Caroline’s
dream Sex
in the office I dreamed I was having sex with
someone from the office and enjoying it. When I woke up I was horrified and
bewildered. I’m not physically attracted to this man and, in any case, I’m
happily monogamous. Notes While the need for sexual
fulfilment can spill over and find expression in your dreams, sex is usually
symbolic. Sex (or kissing, marriage etc) is often symbolic of the integration
process: of the need to unite with an aspect of yourself or with a quality
which has been missing from your life until now. The important clue is to look at
the person you’re having sex with in the dream. Apply your People Method dream
interpretation tools to discover what it is that you’re uniting with in the
dream. If the sex is good, then it generally follows that the integration
hinted at in the dream is good. Caroline may not be attracted to her office
colleague physically but she may admire his dedication to his work, for
example. Her dream would then be reflecting her unconscious need to integrate
more work dedication into her own life. If the sex is repulsive the dream may
be alerting you to an undesirable quality which you are allowing into your life
or taking on as a new aspect of yourself. Again, just apply your People Method
dream interpretation skills to your dream partner to ascertain which particular
undesirable qualities your unconscious mind is warning you about. Another common dream that people
rarely discuss is having sex with a same-sex partner when you’re sure you’re
heterosexual. Although such a dream may help to identify and integrate
homosexuality, this is rarely the case. Same-sex sex in a dream should be
interpreted in exactly the same way as heterosexual sex. The important thing is
to determine the symbolism of the sexual partner and then move on to consider
the dream’s integration message. Sometimes same-sex partners symbolise the
female side or the male side of the dreamer. Tips Letting
go & moving on It’s likely that some of the
sample dreams in this chapter were familiar to you from your own dreaming
history. Hopefully you now have a more complete understanding of the processes
of dissociation, integration and change. Positive change is about learning from
the past, transforming fear into love, and letting go of the old (attitudes or
beliefs) so you can give birth to the new. Sometimes it can seem difficult
to find a time-line in a dream. What is past, what is now, and what is future?
For a deeper understanding of this I suggest you read my paperback book,
"The Shape of Things to Come", published by Random House Australia
and also available as an e-book in the Dream Network Shop at
www.dream.net.au/shop/. Meanwhile here are a couple of time hints to watch out
for in your dreams:
Within all of these dreams you
will find clues to help you integrate the past and then to decide which parts
of the past you want to keep, which parts you want to let go, how to achieve
this, and how to move on to a better and more ‘whole’ future. In Chapter 6 you will discover
how to interpret different parts of the body, and how to deal with, and
interpret, emotions and feelings in dreams. STEP
15 To prepare for Chapter 6 write
down a dream featuring a part (or parts) of the body, and another dream that
carried strong or heightened emotions.
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