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Chapter 14
All in the Action
How do you act in your dreams? Are you the
hero of the story or do you run away and hide? Do you fly higher than any person has ever
gone, or do you dig a hole in the sand and hibernate? Do you say what you really feel,
express yourself, perhaps even violently, or do you bow to the wishes of others? Are you
right there in the midst of all the action, or do you watch at a safer distance?
How you act and react in your dreams gives an
insight into how you handle your waking life. One lady told me how she repeatedly dreamed
of kicking her first husband, so much so that she often found herself physically kicking
him as she awoke. She did not express her frustration during her waking hours, but her
dreaming self was releasing her true emotions. In the end she had to acknowledge the way
she felt and do something about it. Our dreams, then, may play our waking behaviour back
to us, like a private movie for our consideration, or they may show us how we
unconsciously feel, giving us an insight into how much we mask our real emotions during
waking life.
It is sometimes helpful to regard all the
characters in your dreams as aspects of yourself, but let’s just consider the one who
looks like you: your ‘dream ego’. Look back at your questionnaire and check your
responses to Section U. Are you generally active or passive in your dreams? What
conclusions can you draw before reading any further?
Active or Passive?
Most of the survey dreamers take a fairly active
role in their night-time encounters, although 67.5% have found themselves watching or
observing the action at some point.
More than half (63.8%) commonly take decisive
actions in their dreams, while 15.6 % have found themselves regularly acting against their
will.
I Take Part in the Action
Most people (91.9%) commonly take part in the
action of their dreams.
I Take Control
Just under half (48.8%) have found themselves
taking control of the action.
I caught someone working undercover and made him
pull off his mask/face. He would have killed me otherwise. I feel this dream shows the
self-destructive aspect of myself.
(Serena, administrative officer)
Serena interpreted her unmasked undercover agent
to be an aspect of herself she had not recognised until the dream. By taking control in
her dream and facing the unknown, she learned something about her tendency to sabotage
herself in waking life.
Fiona’s dream shows a change of attitude, a
turning point where she takes control at the vital moment:
I was in the water at the mouth of a river, with
some other people, clinging onto a huge brass buoy. As we grabbed at one side, we dragged
it over, so that the rim we were holding onto was submerged. I lost my grip and a current
swept me out to sea. In that moment of panic I decided I didn’t have to drown and could try and save myself. I started to swim
with strong, swift strokes and almost immediately was back in the river.
Incidentally, I’m a very poor swimmer!
(Fiona, retired medical secretary)
Being in the water, Fiona’s dream was
looking at her emotional or unconscious self, and shows she felt, unconsciously, that she
was losing control. In her own words, her dream report reveals she felt she had ‘lost
her grip’ on life and was being swept along by her emotions or perhaps by the
emotional needs of others. Her dream showed Fiona that she had two choices: to continue to
act passively (and drown, or ‘go under’) or to take control and save herself.
The moment she decided on action she was back in the river (flow of life?). Fiona’s
very positive dream experience gave her a sense of elation at taking control and perhaps
gave her courage to apply the same sense of control in her waking life.
Another person (let’s call him Marc) in a
different phase of life, may have found himself drifting peacefully out to sea,
without Fiona’s sense of panic. Marc’s dream suggests he should relax and go
with the flow of his emotions for a while, and that such passive action might bring a much
needed sense of peace. It is important to realise that there are times for being active
and times for being passive, and that ‘active’ is not always better than
‘passive’.
Why have I interpreted Fiona’s dream as
showing a need to be more active and take control, whereas I have taken Marc’s dream
to indicate a need for passive relaxation? Their dreams were similar. It is important to
look not only at how their dream egos act, but at how this action makes them feel.
Fiona felt panic when she was being passive, but felt strong when she was active. Marc
felt peaceful when he was passive.
When you look at how you act in dreams, take care
to consider the attached feelings and use these to guide your interpretation within the
context of the story-line of the dream.
I Make Decisions
Results showed that 63.8% of the survey dreamers
commonly make decisions in their dreams. How many of these dream decisions can be carried
forward into waking life?
I was going to some sort of meeting place and met a
girl heading for the same place. She walked in some kind of brace and said she was going
to this place for a cure. We became very close over the next few days. I helped her out of her harness and fondled
her breasts, giving us both much pleasure. We seemed inseparable and comfortable with each other.
Then some members of my family turned up and this seemed
to split us.
I felt lost, alone and unhappy without this girl who
had become a ‘part’ of me. I saw her
passing here and there and she was not happy either. She told me she was leaving to go
back home, without her brace. I wanted to come
too but she wouldn’t let me and seemed angry
at me.
I seemed to be busy but not getting anywhere.
About every five minutes one of my family members would want something of me. It was all
very messy and the house started falling apart: a board missing, something broken, steps gone, a fence or gate in need
of repair. The girl said, ‘I’m going away now. I’ll always be there for
you, but you must clean up your own mess before you can come.’
The old man and woman who seemed to own this
‘health farm’ were all in favour of us being together, and the old man said, "You go.
I’ll fix all this. You must go.’ I made up my mind I would go
and be with her and then woke up.
(Seeker, astrologer)
Full of universal symbol language, this dream
shows Seeker’s need to meet and integrate with his inner female self to
recover his health and wellbeing. He is looking for a cure when the girl, in his
own words, becomes ‘a part of me’. This integration is underlined by the
sexual fondling which brings pleasure, as well as by the other emotional expressions in
this dream. Seeker’s family split this relationship by imposing too many demands and
this is indeed reflective of Seeker’s life where his dedication to supporting his
birth family has denied him of the time and space to find union with his inner self.
The dream goes further to illustrate the
devastating mental and physical effects which Seeker has suffered because of this
imbalance in his life. The dream house (mental and physical self) fell apart as soon as
the family made its constant demands on him. Seeker wishes to go with the girl, but she
stops him. She tells him what he needs to do to find her again: he has to clear up the
mess he has got himself into before he can truly be whole.
The old man is symbolic of Seeker’s wiser
self (his Higher Self, his inner words of wisdom). This man takes an opposing view from
the girl. He urges Seeker to drop everything and go now. He implies that the mess
will sort itself out simply because he makes the decision to act now. Seeker agrees
with the wise old man in his dream, and makes the decision to take action and go
with her.
On waking, Seeker has experienced the positivity
of his dream decisiveness and was left to contemplate translating his dream decision into
waking life.
Eleanor has recurring dreams:
Sometimes I’m exploring the interior of an
empty house to see if it suits me to live in it, and sometimes I’m exploring a street
of house exteriors.
(Eleanor, homeopath)
Looking for an alternative state of mind (house),
both on the inside and on the outside, Eleanor spends her dream searching, in the process
of decision making. A helpful exercise for Eleanor would be to relive her dreams in a
relaxed state, while awake, and alter the course of events. She could experiment with
deciding to buy this house, or that, allowing herself to daydream about taking decisions
and about living here or there. She could feel her emotional responses to making this or
that decision, and perhaps move closer to making a decision in her waking life.
I Don’t Take Part in the Dream
Not taking part in their dreams was a common
experience for 13.1% of survey dreamers. This was, in hindsight, a badly worded question,
so I don’t know how many of thee people meant they were observing, and how many meant
they weren’t even observing.
When the dreamer is not there at all, either as
an actor or observer, she may be practising the ultimate form of dissociation from the
content of her dream. In these cases, the dream scenario may be so potent that the dreamer
needs total objectivity to make any kind of assessment of her situation. Such a dream may
also belong to a dreamer who is feeling distant and removed from her own life. She may
perceive her waking ego as totally alien to her inner self, and not invite it into her
dreams.
Many people experience dreams as someone else. I
once dreamed I was a man:
I was part of a labouring team and I had missed
the work truck because I was talking to another man in the locker room. He was hiding and
I didn’t want to be associated with him, so I left and walked fast to catch up with
the truck. My punishment for being late was to be shot at close range by a catapult which
would drive a silver screw into my forehead: my third eye. I was scared, but the man who
was appointed to do this to me checked that the boss wasn’t looking then rubbed the
screw over my forehead to make it bleed and pushed my face into the ground to get gravel
into the wound. This was supposed to be lenient, saving me from the catapult, but it still
hurt! It was a ‘cover up’ job.
(Jane Anderson)
Dreaming you are someone else and experiencing
life through their eyes is a stunning feeling and dreamers are often convinced that they
have relived a past life or jumped into another body. I believe all these things are
possible and also that they do happen. However, I also believe that we sometimes have
dreams that are symbolic of our present life, in which we experience the dream through the
eyes of other aspects of ourselves, not through our dream ego. In my dream I was that man
just as much as I am Jane Anderson.
I Follow Others
Familiar to 18.1% of dreamers is the experience
of being a follower rather than a leader.
There are times in our lives for leading, and
times for following, although sometimes we may be in the habit of leading when we should
follow, or vice versa. When you interpret a leading or following dream, look at the
feelings leading or following gives you, and use these to guide your interpretation.
(Refer to ‘I Take Control’ earlier in the chapter for illustration.)
I Act Against My Will
Some 15.6% of survey dreamers have succumbed to
the power of another in a dream.
I used to dream I was driven off a cliff or was
blown off by fire. I hit the bottom and died the last time five years ago.
(Annie, home maker)
There was a very steep mountain with cable cars
and I recall standing at the bottom of the slope where the cable car terminated. I looked
up and saw the cable car tracks, one up, one down, vividly, including all the contours.
The cars operated on tracks rather than being suspended. Then I was in the car and I was
absolutely terrified. I was belted in but there was no cage surround. Therefore, you sat
with your back to the mountain and you looked straight into space and down into …
(David, surveyor)
When I act against my will it is like being a
puppet.
(May, day care provider)
Does May feel like a puppet sometimes in her
waking life? If so, who pulls her strings? Who controls her? If May examines her dreams
she will be able to pinpoint the circumstances which cause her to passively respond in
puppet fashion instead of cutting the cords and acting for herself.
What do the other examples (above) suggest to you
about the dreamers? Could they make changes in their lives to regain control?
Scotty’s recurring dream revealed that he
felt he was being driven around (controlled) by others, acting against his will:
Usually, in dreams, I drive. However, when
someone else does I start feeling upset and try to get out, or I’ll say
"I’ll drive.’ A month ago we nearly made a major investment in real estate
as a partnership. It was rushed and we got to the point of signing bank and vendor
contracts. I realised at the last minute it was too risky and sought legal advice,
managing to get out of the deal at some expense. I was emotionally and physically sick
with worry and my dreams reflected this. Going back over the last six months of my dreams
I had over half-a-dozen dreams warning me of this situation.
(Scotty, petrol tank driver)
Had Scotty been as adept at interpreting his
dreams then as he is now, he would have been able to see his sliding loss of control and
take action at an earlier stage, perhaps preventing the emotional and physical sickness
that he endured as a result. Such a dream could also reflect conflict over control issues
and a need to be ‘in control’, although this did not seem to be the case for
Scotty.
Heather had a number of dreams which prompted her
to take more control of a certain situation in her waking life. She did this, and her new
attitude was confirmed in a subsequent dream:
I was a member of a committee that had to make
decisions re the five living presidents of the USA! I was controlling
the meeting and as several of the people present
were looking towards me, I said, ‘Well, we are agreed that we will establish their
privileges according to priority.’ The environment was plush and the lights were
bright in that bright room. How’s that for
taking power! I’ve been laughing all
morning!
(Heather, retired psychiatric nurse)
Apart from observing your actions in dreams, it
can be helpful to rewrite a dream in the morning, changing all the actions. Take
Serena’s dream:
I was walking in the countryside with my
daughter. We were dehydrated after three weeks with no water. A man gave my child a
crystalline substance but I didn’t ask for anything. We kept walking and I collapsed
at a friend’s house.
(Serena, administration officer)
How might you rewrite this to give Serena back a
sense of control? Here’s my effort:
‘I was walking in the countryside with my
daughter. We were dehydrated after three weeks with no water. A man gave my child a
crystalline substance. I thanked him and explained that we both desperately needed water.
I hadn’t noticed his campsite behind the old ruins. In a moment he was pouring fresh
water from his billy can and we drank to our hearts’ content. Refreshed, I asked him
to explain how the crystalline substance could help us further. We left his camp and
reached my friend’s house well before dark.’
Symbolically, Serena’s dream reflected her
huge thirst for emotional (water) nurturing and caring from others, or even from herself.
It also showed how she neglected herself by not asking for what she needed.
Practical Summary
Write down your dream and use a highlighter pen
to underline the action in the dream. If you were observing, do the same for the actions
shown by the main characters, since this will bear some relevance to you.
Note how many actions were active and how many
were passive. Look at the feelings or emotions that accompanied your actions. Decide which
actions felt good, and which felt inappropriate or unsatisfactory. What did each action
lead to? Does your dream suggest ‘If you do this, then that will
happen’? Or does your dream reflect your unconscious conditioning about taking active
or passive roles and where such stances are expected to lead you?
Rewrite your dream (maybe several different ways)
and change some of the actions. Make up what happens after each changed action. Play
around with possible outcomes from different actions. See how these alternative ways of
approaching life, of acting, not acting or reacting might be worth trying in your waking
life.
What was happening in your waking life in the day
or so leading up to your dream? Why might this have triggered your dream? Does the dream
suggest a better way of dealing with your waking life?
Ah yes, it’s all in the action!
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